Despite ‘significant progress,’ Northern Ireland's minority party leader says concerns remain over post-Brexit deal

The new proposed post-Brexit trade agreement shows “significant progress,” but concerns remain, said Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), at a National Press Club Headliners Newsmaker news conference Wednesday, March 15.

Donaldson said the Windsor Framework, the proposed post-Brexit agreement between the United Kingdom and European Union, is an improvement over the previous Northern Ireland Protocol, a stopgap measure that kept Northern Ireland in the EU for the purpose of facilitating trade.

And while he said the DUP will study the framework and its full legislative text when the British government releases it, there is still much to resolve, including on customs checks and Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. Donaldson said an eight-person DUP panel will consult on the deal and report back at month’s end. 

We need to see the detail, we need to see the legislation and we need to resolve the outstanding issues in a way that enables us to say that we believe that the progress is sufficient to enable us to restore the political institutions in Northern Ireland, in a way that means we're not having to operate a government that is imposing rules and measures that are harmful to our place within the United Kingdom,” Donaldson said. 

One DUP sticking point remains the customs arrangements between Northern Ireland, the EU and the rest of the UK, which Donaldson said must help facilitate smooth trade. 

He said borders on land or in the Irish Sea would be “harmful to our place, our sense of identity and our sense of belonging.” Goods shouldn’t be subject to EU law, he said, if they are staying in the UK but should be subject to those checks between Northern Ireland and the EU. That, Donaldson said, would give a “sense of proportion, sense of balance” to customs arrangements. 

Donaldson also said the Windsor Framework leaves unresolved the question of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK. And he criticized the “democratic deficit” of Northern Ireland being subject to EU some customs laws, but not being a part of the EU. He said it remains to be seen if the so-called Stormont Brake, which allows Northern Ireland’s Assembly to object to new EU rule changes that apply there, will be sufficient. 

Northern Ireland’s devolved parliament at Stormont, seat of the government, has not been functioning since last year after the DUP withdrew from the power-sharing executive required under the Good Friday Agreement. Donaldson said that a boycott over the Protocol will continue until all parties can regain the “cross-community consensus” needed for governing Northern Ireland. 

Donaldson also criticized nationalist party Sinn Fein for a recent advertisement in The New York Times, which called for a referendum on a united Ireland and urged the United States to hold the British government to its Good Friday Agreement commitments. He said Sinn Fein's calls for a “divisive” poll would create more division when leaders’ focus should be elsewhere.

“The last 25 years have been about cementing the peace,” Donaldson said. “The next 25 years must be about bringing prosperity to everyone in Northern Ireland.”

Donaldson spoke a day before an appearance at the Club by Northern Ireland's majority leader Michelle O'Neill, vice president of Sinn Fein.