Government to announce whether Stormont brake can be removed

The government is due to announce later on Monday whether it will allow the Stormont brake to be removed following a petition from unionist parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly.

The brake is part of Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal and gives the assembly the power to oppose changes to EU rules that apply in Northern Ireland.

TO Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) motion to hit the brakesin a bid to prevent new EU rules on packaging and labeling chemicals, was backed by all eligible members of the union assembly in December.

It is up to the government to decide whether the brake can be formally activated.

The brake was part of an international package of measures – known as the windsor frame – agreed by the UK and EU two years ago, aimed at resolving problems with post-Brexit trade deals in Northern Ireland.

The framework is the special Brexit deal that applies to Northern Ireland and means it continues to follow some EU laws relating to goods.

The brake was designed to give Stormont politicians a greater say before any amended EU rules could come into force in Northern Ireland.

Completely new rules are addressed through a comparable process known as an applicability motion.

The decision by unionist parties before Christmas is seen as a first test of the mechanism since power-sharing returned at Stormont almost 12 months ago.

There are restrictions on its use for assembly members who wish to use the brake.

Firstly, the measure can only be used in the “most exceptional circumstances and as a last resort”.

The mechanism also cannot be used for “trivial” reasons and those seeking to withdraw it must demonstrate that the challenged rule is having a “significant” impact on daily life in Northern Ireland.

The unionist parties had a two-month “scrutiny period” from the publication of the EU law to make their request and for the government to respond, so Monday is the deadline for a decision by the Irish secretary of the North, Hilary Benn.

If he resolves that the threshold has not been met, Benn will write to the Speaker of the Northern Ireland Assembly explaining why, and the amended EU law will apply in Northern Ireland.

If the government has determined that the conditions have been met, it will formally notify the EU and the new or amended law will not apply.

There would then be “intensive consultations” between the UK and the EU on the matter.

The Joint Committee, the UK-EU body responsible for overseeing the Brexit deal, would be required to debate the rule in question.

Once those discussions conclude, the UK government can send it back to the assembly for a cross-community vote or decide that the rule should not apply in Northern Ireland.

At that stage, the government could still avoid a vote at Stormont if it assessed that “exceptional circumstances” existed, including an assessment that the rule would not create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

If the UK decided not to adopt the standard, the EU could take “appropriate corrective measures”, which could include measures to address the fact that NI products no longer fully comply with EU law.

When his party tabled the motion in December in a bid to have the brake removed, DUP leader Gavin Robinson said the new EU regulation would have a “significant and protracted” impact on Northern Ireland if it came into force. .

It said it would introduce a series of new requirements for labels attached to chemicals, including new minimum font sizes and rules on spacing, which would make current labels unusable for most products.

“The most important thing is that these changes would not be necessary for products marketed in Great Britain,” he added.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill of Sinn Féin said other parties had not been informed of the DUP’s actions and warned they could cause instability for businesses in Northern Ireland.

The leader of the official opposition in Stormont, Matthew O’Toole, described the use of the brake as “a trick”.

“We warned that the so-called Stormont brake would be used for crude partisan purposes and it has demonstrated this,” said the Social Democratic and Labor Party assembly member.

Before the decision, Traditional Unionist Voice leader Jim Allister said his party had “no illusions” about the limitations of the brake.

“The main impact of this experience must be to demonstrate to ourselves that no self-respecting person can voluntarily submit to this type of injustice as a long-term agreement,” he added.

“Instead of working with this injustice, accommodating it, in the future unionism must remain united against it.”

By Enda McClafferty, political editor, BBC Information NI

You could say it was a defining moment for Hilary Benn.

If you agree with unionists and apply the Stormont brake to stop EU changes on chemical packaging, you risk damaging relations with Brussels.

This comes a week after the government appointed a senior official to push for the restart of the new relationship with the EU.

But if Benn rules that the threshold for pumping the brakes has not been met, it will infuriate some unionists and embolden others who see the Stormont brake as nothing more than a gimmick.

In the past, such a scenario could have triggered a crisis in the heart of Stormont, but no longer, as there is no desire to collapse the institutions.

But whatever the outcome, the Northern Ireland secretary can be expected to talk about the prospect of a new deal with the EU that removes the need for any brakes.