Debate contribution: UK-EU Customs Union

Debate contribution by Ms Diana Armstrong on 9 February 2026.

MLA

Ms Diana Armstrong

Party at the time

Ulster Unionist Party

Date

9 February 2026

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

UK-EU Customs Union

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 5369830

Read the official Assembly record

Text

There can be few in the Chamber who would deny that we have seen at first hand the disastrous and deplorable effects that the Irish Sea border has inflicted on our economy. We have witnessed reduced choice on the shelves of our shops, increased bureaucratic burdens on those attempting to move goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and significant harm to our agri-food sector. In the aftermath of Brexit, the people of Northern Ireland were given many carefully crafted assurances from Westminster about our secure and equal place in the United Kingdom, assurances that some Members of the Chamber championed with great enthusiasm, yet, as time has shown, they were assurances only and not guarantees. From the UUP's perspective, the long-term solution must be a bespoke customs arrangement that removes checks, borders and restores economic union within our country. However, the motion is not that solution; it is grandstanding dressed up in hypocrisy. You cannot present a motion to the House and declare that it:

"reaffirms the importance of Northern Ireland's dual market access".

When we all know that dual market access, as Mr Brooks said, is in practice a myth. What we have is an economy—.

Certainly, yes.

Thank you for your intervention. We have had a diversion of trade through the South because of the difficulties in trading with GB, and I will come to that. We have an economy caught between two regulatory systems that is paying the price for the misjudgements and short-sightedness of others. The claims that our prosperity hinges on dual market access or that we would collapse without it lack evidence and self-awareness. Officials who have appeared before the Economy Committee, again as mentioned by Mr Brooks, include representatives from Invest NI and the Department for the Economy who have repeatedly confirmed that there is no meaningful evidence of job creation or foreign direct investment attributable to so-called dual market access. The irony of today's motion is striking. We are told that the Windsor framework provides practical and necessary protections to mitigate some of the worst consequences of Brexit, yet it comes from the very party that refuses to acknowledge the genuine, ongoing damage caused by that framework. It entrenches regulatory divergence from Great Britain, imposes layers of bureaucracy, disrupts supply chains and places long-term economic constraints on the people of Northern Ireland. Our industries are suffering; our economy is under strain; and we cannot afford further drift or self-congratulation.

I am going to finish. Thank you. It is a complex constitutional and economic issue, and the motion fails to grapple with any of that complexity. It continues to champion the fiction of dual market access — access that would, to widespread disbelief, disappear almost overnight, were a customs union ever to be fully realised. Therefore, why refer to it? The Ulster Unionist Party will always oppose the imposition of any border that divides our country, whether it originates in Brussels, Dublin or London. We cannot support a motion that refuses to face reality.

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

Assessment

Not flagged

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Assessed 21 October 2026 at 14:33 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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