Member's statement: Irish Sea Border

Member's statement by Mr Jim Allister KC on 19 March 2024.

MLA: Mr Jim Allister KC
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 19 March 2024
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: Irish Sea Border
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4278886

Text

Last week, we had the news that £192 million is to be spent building border posts at a border that, some tell us, does not exist. It is clear that the propaganda that all that was at the border was what was always there for phytosanitary checks and to stop smuggling etc is patently false, otherwise £192 million would not be spent building border posts.
I also got an answer from the Agriculture Minister last week telling me that 151 DAERA staff are employed at the border posts, that he needs more, and that he is recruiting another 28 staff. What are they doing? Let me give you some examples. I have a constituent in Cullybackey who breeds budgies. Every year or so, he brings in a new budgie from England to vary the strain. Now, what does he have to do? He has to have a veterinary certificate in England for the budgie. He has to have a veterinary certificate in Northern Ireland when the budgie arrives. He has to fill in all the paperwork, and he has to pay all the fees. Who would have thought that the EU single market is so fragile that the import of a budgie from Cheltenham to Cullybackey puts it at risk? What else do those DAERA staff do? We know, for example, that, with the bluetongue designation, there are cattle for Northern Ireland, bought in Scotland or England, sitting there for months on end unable to be brought into Northern Ireland because EU law says otherwise. Yet, cattle bought in France can be transported through GB and come in unimpeded. Why? It is because GB is regarded as a foreign country, whereas the cattle coming from France are regarded as coming from another part of the EU. I also had a case recently of someone who shows birds across the water. When he arrived back in Belfast, he was pulled in and all his birds were sent back to England to be quarantined for six weeks. His birds, which came from Northern Ireland and were taken to a weekend show in England, were sent back at his expense to be quarantined in England. Then, there are some who are so foolish as to believe that there is no sea border. Sadly, it continues to exist in all its ugliness and its partitioning of this United Kingdom.

395 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers met the documented threshold for “not flagged”.

Overall probability that the activity is being used to promote, exploit or escalate an identity-based controversy: 0.37 (flagging needs at least 0.70; at or below 0.30 is not flagged).
None of the five culture-war criteria was met (each was below 0.60).
Assessed as legitimate policy scrutiny (0.76).
No identity-based framing was identified (0.81).
Subject area: Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty.
The overall probability was low and the text did not adopt any identity-based framing.

This is an AI-generated assessment of the text, made against published criteria. It is not a finding of fact about the MLA or their intentions. The Assembly record itself is the fact.

Jev’s structured answers

Probability that each statement is true of this text (0 = no, 1 = yes). A criterion counts as met at 0.60 or above.
Question	Probability	Met?
Identity framing	0.14	No
Sectarian or communal antagonism	0.06	No
Cultural grievance politics	0.04	No
Dog-whistle messaging	0.16	No
Controversy escalation	0.20	No
Legitimate policy scrutiny	0.76	Yes
Overall judgement	0.37	Between thresholds

Context and attribution (stance)
Option	Probability
No identity-based framing (chosen)	0.81
Reports or questions it	0.01
Criticises or condemns it	0.01
Adopts it	0.17

Subject area (top five)
Subject	Probability
Constitutional question, Brexit, the Windsor Framework and sovereignty	0.94
No identity-related subject	0.06
Flags, emblems, symbols, names and memorials	0.00
Parades, bonfires and commemorations	0.00
Irish language, Ulster-Scots and language policy	0.00

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:45 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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