Hilary Benn, the Northern Secretary, has humiliated the DUP by refusing to deploy the so-called ‘Stormont brake’ to halt a new EU law.
This is the first time the DUP has tried using the mechanism, created for it under the Windsor Framework. London’s guarantee that Stormont would have some say over the sea border has turned out to be more worthless than even cynics suspected.
Benn’s refusal is so crushing it might once have been expected to destabilise devolution, and perhaps it will. But in a further humiliation, he has clearly judged the DUP too weak to cause trouble.
Compounding the unionist party’s embarrassment, it requested the brake over a matter so apparently trivial – font sizes on labels for chemical products – that it sounds like a satirical joke. The DUP was fortunate to avoid headlines about unionism reverting to type.
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The matter is not trivial, however. During the consultation Stormont undertook last year while considering the labelling law, the UK’s Chemical Industries Association – the wonderfully initialled CIA – agreed the new rules are “likely to have a significant negative impact specific to everyday life of communities in Northern Ireland in a way that is liable to persist”. This is the Windsor Framework test to use the brake.
Britain sells over £1 billion of chemical products to Northern Ireland annually, ranging from consumer items to industrial raw materials. The CIA believes some British suppliers will find relabelling uneconomic.
The new EU law also changes regulations on refillable containers, staff training and emergency information. Stormont heard this may cause further supply problems.
In his response to the brake request, delivered on Monday, Benn dismissed these concerns with a familiar argument: British firms will want to comply with the new law to export to the EU. The CIA has already questioned that assumption, saying any remaining frictions would still be “more keenly felt” in Northern Ireland’s small market. Sourcing from the Republic or further afield is not always a viable alternative. The Republic may lose supplies from Britain and transporting chemical products can be costly.
Benn did pay tribute to everyone at Stormont for working through the elaborate brake process. This begins with a cross-party assembly committee examining the impact of each new EU law. Since devolution was restored last February, over 30 have been reviewed without controversy.
But as concern about the labelling law mounted, a predictable problem emerged: disagreements produce an orange-green split. When the committee voted on December 12th on whether the brake test had been met, every unionist member voted yes and every nationalist voted no.
Alliance held the balance of power and also voted no. Its strongly pro-European views, uncontentious before Brexit, now compel it take sides to an extent that is subverting the hope for a new centre ground politics.
Unionism still had the numbers to request the brake via a petition to the speaker. This produced another perfect tribal split, receiving the support of every unionist assembly member and no one else. Signatures from liberal independents and members of the UUP did not convince nationalists or Alliance that unionism had a point. The SDLP called it a “DUP stunt”.
So the whole of unionism has been humiliated by Benn’s dismissal of the petition, creating a conflicted dynamic where other unionist parties are angry at the DUP, yet every unionist party is united in dismay. The TUV is demanding the DUP walk out of Stormont; the UUP is trying to avoid a fight with the DUP by blaming the brake failure on Sinn Féin and Alliance; and the DUP is desperately trying to minimise its embarrassment by claiming London is still addressing its concerns.
In short, unionism is a mess. The British government cannot consider this a positive outcome.
Would accepting the petition have outraged nationalism? Maybe, but to a lesser degree. The Stormont brake can only slow the tide of EU regulation, leaving the direction of travel in nationalism’s favour. Monday’s statement promises London will do all it can to avoid new sea border frictions on chemical products, preferably by aligning UK and EU regulation. This is the ultimate solution to all unionism’s Brexit problems.
The DUP’s failure to embrace alignment must be a source of frustration to a Labour government that wants a closer trading relationship with Europe. Although kicking the DUP might not help to win unionism over, annoying Brussels by using the Stormont brake would do far more harm to Labour’s agenda. Keeping Brussels happy at the DUP’s expense would be an understandable calculation, even with Northern Ireland and indeed unionism’s best interests in mind.
Nevertheless, Benn could have explored his options to give the DUP a softer landing. While almost nobody wants a crisis, humiliation is still a dangerous game to play with the prickly balance of Northern Ireland politics.
