The Northern Ireland Protocol and Windsor Framework mitigate against the worst excesses of Brexit, MLAs have been told.
Sinn Fein MLA Philip McGuigan claimed as the Stormont Assembly began a debate on whether to continue with the region’s post-Brexit trading arrangements.
However, a DUP MLA stated that the debate and vote is an “illusion of democracy”.
The previously stated voting intentions of the main parties suggest that members will back the extension of the measures for another four years when they vote later on Tuesday.
The democratic consent process is a key element of the UK and EU’s Windsor Framework deal and is designed to give local elected representatives a say on the contentious trade rules that now operate in the region.
The framework, and its predecessor the NI Protocol, require checks and customs paperwork on goods moving from Great Britain into Northern Ireland.
Under the arrangements designed to ensure no hardening of the Irish land border post-Brexit, Northern Ireland continues to follow many EU trade and customs rules.
This has proved highly controversial, with unionists arguing the system threatens Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
Advocates of the arrangements say they help insulate the region from the negative economic consequences of Brexit.
Launching the debate at the Assembly on Tuesday, Mr McGuigan said he did not want to rehash the Brexit arguments.
He added: “In 2016 the vast majority of citizens in the north voted to remain in the EU.
“They did so in the knowledge that politically and economically it is in our best interests.
“Those who say they don’t consent to the protocol seem to forget that the north never consented to Brexit in the first place.”
Referring to trading arrangements, he added: “Are there issues? Of course, there are. This isn’t perfect.
“However, the protocol at least mitigates against the worst excesses of Brexit.
“Brexit could not be anything other than negative and was always going to cause problems.
“We have managed to protect ourselves from the worst impact, but there have been impacts.”
Mr McGuigan continued: “In the short term the certainty and stability in the relationship with the EU that the protocol and Windsor Framework offers are vital and must be endorsed by the majority in this chamber today.
“Today’s vote and the continuation of the protocol protections are vitally important.”
DUP MLA Jonathan Buckley told MLAs: “What is today’s debate all about? Is it a genuine attempt to give members of the Northern Ireland Assembly a democratic say in the laws that govern them?
“Or, is it merely parliamentary parlour games, giving lip service to the basic tenets of democratic consents?
“Be under no illusion, today’s debate, today’s vote is an illusion of democracy. A rigged vote in which the European Union already know the outcome.”
He added: “The outcome of this vote is known.
“I listened yesterday to how some experts on the Brexit process and European relations say this vote is something special, the European Union don’t allow devolved governments to have a say on trade policy, never mind the UK Government.
“They (the EU) simply would not let it happen if they thought that the outcome would not be guaranteed.”
A dispute over the so-called Irish Sea border led to the collapse of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 2022 when the DUP withdrew then-first minister Paul Givan from the coalition executive.
The impasse lasted two years and ended in February when devolution returned.
Under the terms of the framework, a Stormont vote must be held on articles five to 10 of the Windsor Framework, which underpin the EU trade laws in force in Northern Ireland, before they expire.
The vote must take place before December 17.
Based on the numbers in the Assembly, MLAs are set to back the continuation of the measures for another four years, even though unionists are likely to oppose the move.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson has already made clear his party will be voting against continuing the operation of the Windsor Framework.
MLAs from Sinn Fein, the SDLP and Alliance Party, which all favour continuation, submitted the required motion to table the vote after Stormont’s first and deputy first ministers failed to reach an agreement to do it jointly themselves.
The process to trigger the vote began at the end of October when Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn sent a letter to the Speaker Edwin Poots asking First Minister Michelle O’Neill and deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly to table a motion by the end of November.
Given the DUP is opposed to a continuation of arrangements that have brought added red tape on trade with the rest of the UK, it was not expected that a motion calling for their extension would be forthcoming from the joint office of a Sinn Fein First Minister and a DUP deputy First Minister.
Once the one-month time period for Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly to table the motion expired at the end of November, it was open for other MLAs in Stormont to do it – prompting Sinn Fein’s Philip McGuigan, the Alliance Party’s Eoin Tennyson and the SDLP’s Matthew O’Toole to table it together.
Unlike other votes on contentious issues at Stormont, the motion does not require cross-community support to pass.
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If it is voted through with a simple majority, the arrangements are extended for four years.
In that event, the Government is obliged to hold an independent review of how the framework is working.
If it wins cross-community support, which is a majority of unionists and a majority of nationalists, then it is extended for eight years.
The chances of it securing such cross-community backing are highly unlikely.
