Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Follow-up Report (European Affairs Committee)

Lord Godson Excerpts

Monday 11th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Godson (Con)]

My Lords, I wish to share in the tributes to the chair, the noble Lord, Lord Jay, and of course to the outstanding work of the committee staff, which has been attested to today and which has been the subject of so much proper and correct unanimity today.

In 2021, our committee found that the dispute over the implementation of the protocol had

“contributed to a serious deterioration in relations between London, Belfast, Dublin and Brussels”

and “a breakdown in trust”. It concluded that urgent steps were required to correct this. That was the starting point for our last two reports, which we are debating today. Our July 2022 report argued that the key to resolving the problem with the protocol was, not surprisingly, a reset in UK/EU relations. The report stated:

“Our witnesses identified four core interlinking principles that are needed to underpin this reset: prioritising Northern Ireland’s interests, constructive engagement, trust, and a renewed commitment to relationship-building”.


The Windsor Framework is based on these principles.

In the UK/EU political declaration accompanying that Windsor Framework, the two parties stated that:

“This new way forward demonstrates the joint determination of the European Commission and the Government of the United Kingdom to constructively work together to address the real issues affecting everyday life in Northern Ireland. Both express their intent to use all available mechanisms in the existing framework and arrangements announced in Windsor today to address and jointly resolve any relevant future issues that may emerge”.


It goes on to say that:

“The new way forward on the Windsor Framework marks a turning point in how both the United Kingdom and the European Union will work together collaboratively and constructively”.


It is this commitment to work together constructively and to use all available means to resolve problems that now offers the best chance of bridging the gap between what is necessary and what is sufficient in providing the answers to the complexity of securing GB to NI trade whilst protecting the EU single market.

Although the Windsor Framework was on the upside of expectations, critics point to many continuing problems, uncertainties with implementation and remaining issues, such as veterinary medicines, which all need resolution. Our witnesses expressed the hope that there will be flexibility to ensure that supply chains are able to operate in the green lane as planned and that any technical barriers that emerge as implementation proceeds will be addressed, to ensure that the aims of the Windsor Framework are delivered. The best hope for these issues to be addressed is through the UK-EU commitment to resolving practical problems and to prioritising Northern Ireland’s interests. Those hopes will only be realised if the EU plays its role as a facilitator of arrangements, not just an enforcer, and stays conscious of the fact that the Belfast/Good Friday agreement seeks to balance the interests and aspirations of both nationalists and unionists and to avoid the alienation of either community.

Our first report further pointed out that the protocol that emerged in 2018 and 2019 was not an inevitable result of Brexit but of the conscious political decisions taken during negotiations by both the EU and the UK on what form those arrangements should take. This analysis therefore contradicts the arguments of nationalists to this committee. The protocol’s basic structure was put in place by December 2017’s EU-UK joint report. We have been trying to push back against this, with some success, but it still leaves in place arrangements that have been very painful for unionists.

It might be that we could have achieved more flexibility through the Windsor accord, but we now have an agreement that the UK Government are committed to in international law. The upholding of this is key to the improved UK-EU relationship we are now enjoying, with all the benefits that brings, such as the Horizon and Copernicus deals agreed last week, which also benefit Northern Ireland. There will be more of this to come.

Therefore, despite the political difficulties for unionists, it is my firm belief that unionists will achieve improvements in these arrangements only by working within the frameworks of consultation and governance that the Windsor Framework established to resolve these problems. This, after all, represents one of the key gains of the Windsor Framework. It is through such engagement that unionists can effectively hold both the EU and the UK Government to account, both in fulfilling their commitments to the people of Northern Ireland and their joint commitment to work together constructively, along with representatives of Northern Ireland on all sides, to solve the practical problems that will arise in future and those we have identified in our latest report.