Brexit: Jim Allister says framework has not led to NI investment

The debate comes ahead of a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly on the Windsor Framework due by the end of the year.

The process, known as the democratic consent motion, was contained in the UK and EU’s 2020 Withdrawal Agreement to give local politicians a say on the rules.

The Windsor Framework was agreed between the government and EU in 2023 following unionist concerns over trade barriers under their original post-Brexit deal, the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Allister, who secured the Westminster debate, said the framework was “the original protocol by another name”.

He said it was “packaged as a tremendous opportunity for Northern Ireland” with promises of an “avalanche of foreign direct investment”.

But he told MPs this has not happened, as the “counterbalance” to EU single market access was an Irish Sea trade border with Great Britain.

“And that is why it hasn’t produced the magical foreign investment, because anyone thinking of investing, not just thinks about where they’re going to sell their goods, they’re going to think about where they’re going to get their raw materials,” he added.

Northern Ireland’s devolved government was restored in February after a two-year hiatus.

It followed the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) ending its boycott of the power-sharing institutions after securing a deal with the government, called Safeguarding the Union.