Brexit Institute News

The Windsor-Westminster Split-Screen Drama

Ian Cooper (DCU Brexit Institute)

On Wednesday, two separate political dramas unfolded side-by-side in the UK parliament. Most of the attention was focused on former PM Boris Johnson, who faced the Privileges Committee to account for his actions in the Partygate scandal. However, of much greater consequence was the debate that took place on the floor of the House of Commons. The resulting vote may presage the beginning of the end of Brexit as a major division in British politics, even as it leaves up in the air the future of devolved government in Northern Ireland (NI).

In the end, the House of Commons voted to endorse the Windsor Framework, a UK-EU agreement aimed at finally resolving issues relating to the implementation of the Brexit agreement as it affects Northern Ireland (NI). This immediately followed a decision by the EU Council to also approve the key elements of the Windsor Framework. This means that the UK and the EU, acting together in the Joint Committee that governs the Withdrawal Agreement, can now move forward to implement the agreement.

The Winsdor Framework had been announced with great fanfare on February 27 by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen. It aimed to recast the Northern Ireland Protocol, the most contentious part of the 2019 EU-UK Withdrawal Agreement, which had kept NI tied to the EU single market even as the rest of the UK departed from the EU.

The measure in the House of Commons – technically a statutory instrument approving one element of the Windsor Framework, the Stormont Brake – passed by an overwhelming margin of 515-29. Its success was never in doubt because the opposition Labour party had indicated beforehand that they would support it. By contrast, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of NI had already indicated on Monday said they would oppose it. The main question was how many Conservative backbenchers would rebel and vote against it.

In the end the rebellion was small – just 22 Conservative MPs – but it included two former prime ministers, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. The vote was in a way a repudiation of the Johnson-Truss record of failure to resolve the outstanding issues related to Brexit, as well as a rejection of their style of performative antagonism in relations with the EU. One aspect of the Windsor Framework was that the UK agreed to withdraw the provocative Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, a legislative proposal supported by Johnson and Truss, that would have allowed the UK to unilaterally terminate parts of the Protocol.

The European Research Group (ERG), the once-mighty party-within-a-party that had been instrumental in the failure of Theresa May’s Brexit deal, was reduced to a rump. In fact, two former ERG chairs and staunch Brexiteers who are now Northern Ireland ministers played a key role in selling the Windsor Framework. These were Chris Heaton-Harris, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and Steve Baker, Minister of State for Northern Ireland, both of whom were originally appointed by Liz Truss but kept on in their roles by Rishi Sunak. Baker memorably remarked that Johnson risked becoming a “pound-shop Nigel Farage” by opposing the deal.

The shrinking number of ERG dead-enders (Jacob Rees-Mogg, John Redwood, etc.) who voted against the measure were put in the awkward position of having previously vehemently supported the original NI Protocol when it was part of Boris Johnson’s 2019 Withdrawal Agreement, but now opposed to Sunak’s Windsor Framework, even as they acknowledged that the latter – including the Stormont Brake – was an improvement over the former.

Sunak had no doubt hoped that the DUP would at least give a cautious endorsement to, or at least abstain from voting against, the Windsor Framework. The vote was on the Stormont Brake, which is the one element of the agreement that was seemingly tailor-made to appeal to the DUP, as it would empower a minority of MLAs in the NI Assembly to raise objections to the application of new Single Market rules in NI. A similar tale may be told about the DUP’s opposition to the “backstop,” part of Theresa May’s 2018 Brexit deal that would have avoided a customs border in the Irish Sea by keeping the whole UK in a customs union with the EU. It was Boris Johnson’s 2019 Brexit deal that included the version of the Northern Ireland Protocol that entailed a customs border in the Irish Sea. The Windsor Framework, with its “red lanes” and “green lanes” for goods entering NI from Great Britain, is intended to mitigate the consequences of the Protocol, which had followed the DUP’s rejection of its predecessor.

Another implication of the DUP rejection is that they will not consent to the restoration of devolved government in NI, and they are likely to maintain this stance at least until local elections in May. This means that the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, when it is celebrated on April 10th (with the likely attendance of US President Joe Biden), will not be accompanied by a functioning NI Assembly at Stormont. And of course, the Stormont Brake – which was the subject of yesterday’s vote in the House of Commons – cannot function until there is a functioning Stormont Assembly.

 

Photo Credits: European Union, 2023

The views expressed in this blog reflect the position of the author and not necessarily that of the Brexit Institute Blog.