Member's statement: EU Customs Border: Green Lane

Member's statement by Mr Jim Allister KC on 24 June 2024.

MLA: Mr Jim Allister KC
Party at the time: Traditional Unionist Voice
Date: 24 June 2024
Type: Member's statement
Business: Members' Statements
Heading: EU Customs Border: Green Lane
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 4497446

Text

In just 100 days, on 1 October, we will see not a loosening, as some have claimed, but a tightening of the EU border noose when the green lane customs border comes into effect. On 1 February, Gavin Robinson said that the green lane was gone and defended the principle behind the red lane. He said that the Government had provided constitutional harm that his party had repaired. However, when asked by the BBC about whether the Irish sea border had been removed, Mr Robinson said:
"The green lane is gone."
Then, on 8 April, he admitted overselling it, and, over the past weekend, he denied overselling it. The Donaldson deal embraced access to the EU single market; yet, last week, in the House, we had Deborah Erskine repudiate it and tell us that it undermines the integrity of the UK's internal market. Where does the DUP stand? That is the question that I find being asked increasingly by many people. The DUP then told us that, come the autumn, the delivery would be clear. On 1 October, the green lane customs border will come into force for the first time. As was the case with the green lane sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) border introduced by the Windsor framework on 1 October 2023, the green lane customs border will help to entrench the EU/Irish Sea border this year. Rather than removing the green lane, the introduction of the new customs border arrangements will further advance the development of the green lane, thereby helping to make the Irish Sea border and our alienation from the rest of the UK more firmly established. It is nothing short of mind-boggling that the leader of the DUP should have sought to argue that that event in the autumn would validate the removal of the green lane when, in reality, it will result in the introduction of the next stage of the green lane. The application of the green lane customs border in addition to the green lane SPS border that is already in place and the red lane — all of which stay — is making the Irish Sea border the subject of the most complicated customs and SPS registration anywhere in the world. Those are not my words; those are the words of someone involved in the haulage industry right at the interface. That is strangling our economy —
— and our main links with GB.

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

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