Orange Order leader's view on what's required to solve the Irish Sea border issue is 'dangerously simplistic' - Allister

At the weekend, the Orange Order grand secretary told the News Letter that the ask from unionists hadn’t changed – but also appeared to accept that changes to the Windsor Framework were off the table.

When asked by the News Letter how the fundamentals of the sea border couldn’t still be in place, the Orange Order leader said he believes there would need to be some form of agreement with the EU over parts of the deal – and Europe would need to “reinterpret” certain aspects of it.

Mr Gibson suggested it could involve renaming certain aspects of the arrangements – something floated in the Daily Telegraph last week.

He said: “That doesn’t mean they need to change regulations and get into full negotiations. Europe has said they won’t renegotiate it and that’s fair enough. But would they listen to ‘we might need to do this, change this round, call this something else?’”, the grand secretary said.

His analysis has been rejected by key figures in the anti-Irish Sea border campaign including the TUV and the loyalist Jamie Bryson.

TUV leader Jim Allister told the News Letter: “It is dangerously simplistic to think easements on the green lane, even its abolition, restores our place within the UK.

“It is the surrender of sovereignty to the EU over our entire goods economy which both breaches the political union and the economic union of the UK and leaves NI, colony-like, under EU laws – precisely the same laws as ROI, which, of course, is essential to the protocol’s mission of unifying Ireland as a single economic unit.

“EU regulations, under the protocol, which designate NI as the entry point and thus part of EU territory are colossal sovereignty grabs which are unaffected by what you call or how you operate the green lane.”

The North Antrim MLA added: “Without full reversal of the legislation giving supremacy to the protocol and the EU sovereignty which flows from it, Article Six of the Acts of Union will, as the Supreme Court has established, remain in suspension and with it our full membership of the UK.

“It is because of these overriding legal and constitutional realities that TUV still holds tenaciously to the joint unionist declaration of September 28 2021, designed under the auspices of the Orange Order, of ‘our unalterable position that the protocol must be rejected and replaced by arrangements that fully respect NI’s position as a constituent and integral part of the UK’.

“How right Grand Lodge was in March 2023 to identify these fundamental issues and determine there could be no return to Stormont without their resolution.

“Green lane tinkering leaves all these constitutional issues untouched and let it also be remembered that all raw materials for manufacturing in NI must use the red lane.”

Mr Allister said the very existence of any customs lanes is “constitutionally obnoxious” because they signify the fettering of internal UK trade at the behest of the EU.

Mr Gibson also told the News Letter: “I think the vast majority of unionists would be happy to go back in if the deal’s right – or close.

“There’d need to be significant changes, but it doesn’t mean legislation with Europe necessarily.”

He believes it can be done via internal UK legislation with Europe kept abreast of matters. He says unionists should examine any deal and see how far the DUP have been able to move the arrangements from the Windsor Framework.

“I think the green lane will have to go. As long as there’s unfettered access to the United Kingdom, and they don’t have customs coming from the mainland – and there’s not a lane I have to go down called the green lane.

“Let’s see what they come up with. No doubt there will be a bit of smoke and mirrors, but there needs to be a bit of substance to it as well,” he added.

Mr Bryson – who has been involved in organising anti-protocol rallies alongside prominent Orangemen – said that while he has great respect for Mr Gibson he rejected the idea that the green lane could disappear without fundamental changes.

The loyalist activist said “there is no mechanism to ‘interpret’ the green lane away” – as it is enshrined under the Windsor Framework.