Speaking after the Democratic Consent Motion vote at the Assembly, Ulster Unionist Party Upper Bann MLA, Doug Beattie MC, said.

“The Democratic Consent Motion, that played out in the Northern Ireland Assembly on Tuesday, had a predictable outcome.  Yet few understand that the outcome, be you a ‘rigorous implementor’ or an anti-Windsor Framework party, can be positive for both factions.

“Firstly, the motion was never to get rid of the Windsor Framework, it was to simply say that article 5-10 of the Windsor Framework should be replaced.  What would that replacement look like, nobody knows, would it be better or worse for Northern Ireland, we simply don’t know. What we do know is if we had voted to end these articles it would take 2 years to come up with a new set of articles to replace the existing 5-10. During those 2 years the Windsor Framework will continue in its entirety, accepting new EU laws and regulations.  Even once articles 5-10 are changed, the Windsor framework will continue and as my party colleague, Steve Aiken MLA, has said, the Assembly simply does not have the capacity to deal with the laws and regulations that will flood NI.

“So, the issue was not about how the vote has been changed to get rid of cross community voting, although that remains an issue. The argument is why on earth would any unionist party have supported the Protocol in the first place. Why would they then actively work to amend this Protocol with a Windsor Framework that did not change the main crux of the issue.

“As it stands, the vote in the Assembly was to retain article 5-10 without cross community support. So, what does that mean? It means that the UK government must now implement an independent review of the Windsor Framework, articles 5-10, giving a level of scrutiny that it has never seen previously.  This could lead to recommendations that certain aspects of these article are simply not fit for purpose and require changing.

“If we couple the independent review of articles 5-10 along with the review of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement in 2026 and combine this with the Labour governments’ pledge to change the UK relationship with the EU, then you can see a way of making articles 5-10 moribund. What is important is that unionism work together positively to influence this process with strategic thinking and ideas.  The Ulster Unionist Party has championed multiple recommendations, from UK to EU data sharing to an SPS deal that can and would alleviate many of the issues we face.

“Going forward, Unionism must become more confident in how we deal with the issues we face.  We must be less trusting and more clinical in our recommendations and ideology alone will not help the people of Northern Ireland.”