Trade issues have been experienced in Northern Ireland due to the increased number of customs checks for goods entering the country from Great Britain. Due to these problems, members of the DUP party – who were the only Northern Irish party to support Brexit – have called on the Prime Minister to invoke Article 16, which would allow the UK to take unilateral action to bring in safeguard measures. Stephen Farry, MP for the North Downs in Northern Ireland’s Alliance Party, warned the DUP’s demands were a “populist solution”.
He told Express.co.uk: “The bar for invoking Article 16 is really high.
“It’s also a complete collapse of the supply chain – we’re not at that stage yet.
“Also, there’s a month delay in implementing the article wherein which the UK and EU would need to find solutions.
“So there isn’t a silver bullet.”
Under Article 16 of the Brexit deal, either side can invoke safeguard measures if serious issues arise from the implementation of the agreement.
The difficulties, however, must be serious and liable to persist over time.
However, Article 16 does not mean a unilateral suspension of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
If one party does enact measures in Article 16, the other may take rebalancing measures.
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They also said UK officials are communicating with European counterparts to resolve the problems.
The Government has also agreed a grace period which allows supermarket to not fully comply with all EU regulations.
This period runs until the end of March, while the Prime Minister has claimed some issues have been experienced, trade is running relatively smoothly.
Mr Johnson said in the Commons this week: “The situation in Northern Ireland is that trade is flowing smoothly, as I understand it.
“And exporters are benefiting from the unfettered access between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“Yes, I am not going to deny down that there are teething problems, and there are issues that we need to sort out but the deal has been of great, great assistance to our businesses in smoothing this.”
