“Safeguarding the Union”: New deal restores government to Stormont led by Sinn Féin

MPs have approved the government’s plan to approve fresh post-Brexit trading arrangements, despite unhappiness from some unionists in Westminster.

The Stormont building, Northern Ireland’s assembly, had been non-functional for almost two years prior to the deal - photo via Wikimedia Commons

Northern Ireland’s new trade deal “Safeguarding the Union” has been struck between the UK government and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) to facilitate trade between Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland. The vote on the new deal has enabled Northern Ireland’s Stormont power-sharing executive to reconvene, ending a two year hiatus.  The government said that its package of measures are “specifically designed to strengthen the Union in the broadest sense”.

“There are so many things that are changing,” O’Neill has stated. “All the old norms, the nature of this state, the fact that a nationalist republican was never supposed to be first minister. That all speaks to the change.”

The legislation simplifies crucial Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, paving the pay for the end of two years of political paralysis in the region. The new deal commits to replacing the 2023 Windsor Framework with a UK Internal Market System. The DUP objected to customs checks on goods entering Northern Irish ports from Britain (the “green lane process” of the Windsor Framework), boycotting the Stormont during negotiations with British ministers. Goods made in Great Britain are not always available for shoppers in Northern Ireland to buy online– with the message “Not available in Northern Ireland” a well-documented frustration for online shoppers. The problems caused by the Stormont paralysis go much further than difficulties over goods however. Without a proper acting government, people have felt increasingly angry at a system that offers them no real political representation. This frustration led to widespread strikes across Northern Ireland by tens of thousands of public service workers, who had become the worst paid in the UK, with an inactive Stormont unable to approve a pay rise.

Under the new deal, the UK Internal Market System will govern the movement of goods remaining within the UK. Checks will be carried out on an “intelligence-led model”, which means that, there will no longer be routine checks on items being sold from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. A new legislative body called Intertrade UK, modelled on the Irish government’s Intertrade Ireland, will work to increase trade among Northern Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales. The changes were drawn up in conjunction with the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), with the intention of addressing its objections to a customs border in the Irish Sea.

The key political effect of the return of a government to Northern Ireland is that Michelle O’Neill, Deputy Leader of Sinn Féin, has become the first pro-Irish unity nationalist First Minister of Northern Ireland. She said she is a “republican”, but has vowed to be a “first minister for all”, including “those who cherish the union”. The power-sharing agreement created by the 1998 Good Friday Agreement means that the post of Deputy First Minister has equal legal status. This will go to the DUP’s Emma Little-Pengelly. The US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, called on both to “work collaboratively to deliver prosperity for the Northern Irish people”.

“There are so many things that are changing,” O’Neill has stated. “All the old norms, the nature of this state, the fact that a nationalist republican was never supposed to be first minister. That all speaks to the change.” Nonetheless, many hardline unionists view O’Neill’s appointment as a symbolic blow. “There are fundamentally important constitutional and economic issues and many unionists are still concerned”, said Lord Dodds of Duncairn. This aside, a clear benefit to everyone in Northern Ireland is that its financial pressures will be eased by Stormont’s return, as this will unlock a £3.3bn financial rescue package from the UK government.

Our analysis: Restoration of Stormont poses questions for Northern Ireland’s place in the union

The recent deal seeks to address the growing challenges to power-sharing and peace in Northern Ireland that reflects decades of political turmoil known as ‘The Troubles’, as well as more recent problems posed by Brexit. In January 2021, the EU’s Northern Ireland Protocol, which introduced new checks on goods from Great Britain, angered unionists, in part as it was seen to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the union. As a result, the DUP boycotted Northern Ireland’s power-sharing administration at Stormont, the seat of the Northern Ireland Assembly.

“Irish unification would be an enormous step, fundamentally changing the make-up of the UK”

This was a potential problem raised by many in Irish politics during the Brexit process. Former Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar argued in March 2018 that Brexit “threatens to drive a wedge between Britain and Ireland, between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, and potentially between the two [Protestant and Catholic] communities in Northern Ireland.” Leaders of Sinn Féin, the party seeking a united Ireland, labelled Brexit more bluntly as the “most serious threat in the history of the peace process.”

As the Good Friday Agreement (or Belfast Agreement) hinged on forming intricate relationships between the various parties, many felt Brexit-caused trade divisions posed a threat to the treaty. In response, some Brexit supporters argued that the Good Friday deal is outdated, while the DUP (which opposed the deal in 1998) have objected to the deal’s release of prisoners connected to violent paramilitary operations, among other issues, for much of the twenty-five years since its implementation. After Brexit, the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) in Northern Ireland withdrew its support of the Good Friday Agreement, objecting to the EU’s Northern Ireland Protocol for trade while arguing that the Good Friday Agreement was failing to protect the rights of Northern Irish Protestants.

What this background shows us is that questions of trade are intimately bound up with more difficult ones around the nature of power-sharing. Above all, it suggests that history is omnipresent in Northern Irish politics. If battles over Brexit brought this to the fore, it is likely that the rise of Sinn Féin will have a similar effect. For now O’Neill and Little-Pengelly have emphasised their similarities, but questions over possible Irish unification have taken on an obvious significance, not least because of their own family histories, deeply tied to some of the more violent episodes of ‘The Troubles’. Irish unification would be an enormous step, fundamentally changing the make-up of the UK and may bring other constitutional questions back into the spotlight, such as that of Scottish independence.

Unification would be far from simple to achieve. It would require approval from Britain as well as a separate vote in the Republic of Ireland. However, Sinn Féin’s growing influence in both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland suggests that unification may become more and more likely. In 2023, only 38 percent of people in Northern Ireland think that Northern Ireland will remain connected to Britain. 45 percent think that Ireland will unite in the next 20 years, and an even higher 63 percent think that Brexit has made a united Ireland even more of a possibility.

As for the post-Brexit trade agreements, only time will tell whether this year’s most recent deal will reassure people in Northern Ireland worried about their place in the UK or whether it will spur Northern Ireland on to break away from Britain and pursue Irish unification.