Jim Allister: How the Irish Sea border is undermining Brexit for the whole United Kingdom and what to do about it

Jim Allister KC is the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) MP for North Antrim, and a former MEP and MLA.

One of the challenges associated with trying to understand the actual effect of the division of the United Kingdom by the Irish Sea border has arisen from the fact that, while the border was supposed to arrive on 1 January 2021, so much of it has been postponed by grace periods.

What’s more the innovations planned to give rise to the most destructive applications of the border – those which rather that frustrating the movement of goods, stop them altogether – seem to have been left till last. At the time of writing, we face the imminent arrival of two of these absolute expressions of the border.

From 1 January it will no longer be possible for veterinary medicines to enter Northern Ireland from Great Britain other than in extremis under an emergency scheme or if batch tested in Northern Ireland by a wholesaler with a special EU authorisation. The days of individual consumers buying medicines for their animals from GB will be over. No amount of paperwork, or payment of duties will generally assuage the demands of this expression of the border. As the House of Lords Northern Ireland Scrutiny Committee has observed, it is expected to result in far-reaching diversion of trade, directly in violation of the Windsor Framework Article 16 Safeguards.

In this article, however, I want to concentrate on the fact that from the end of this year it will no longer be legal for Northern Ireland car retailers to bring across new cars from GB for sale in their showrooms, unless they meet EU Vehicle Type Approval. This is a big deal because up until now Northern Ireland has always understood itself to be a small, fully integrated part of the UK economy that does not manufacture cars but brings them in from the parts of our home economy that do.

On hearing this, someone might ask: ‘Why don’t GB car manufacturers build their cars to both GB and EU standards? That way they can access the biggest possible market and sell to the largest possible group of people?’ That is precisely what the Government recommended. It sounds like a plausible solution but fails to grasp the underlying realities of the marketplace.

We all know that one of the frustrations with the EU and its bureaucrats is their tendency to develop lots of complicated regulations governing every conceivable economic process. While we never suggested that it was all misplaced, we were very clear that quite a bit of it was over the top. Setting out its ‘Vision for GB Type Approval’ the then Conservative Government stated on 16 May 2024 that the opportunity to develop our own Vehicle Type Approval Regime presented the opportunity to access Brexit benefits by developing a more ‘agile and pro-innovation’ approach which ‘reducing process and red tape’ would produce cars more efficiently than the EU.

UK car manufacturers are keen to exploit these opportunities, but they will not be able to do so if they produce all their cars subject to the demands of both GB and EU Vehicle Type Approval. This would mean that rather than getting rid of bureaucracy, the partitioning of Brexit through the Irish Sea border, would have served to increase it. As the National Franchise Dealers Association pointed out in early July, identical cars can be as much as £4000 more expensive under EU Type Approval compared to GB Type Approval.

In this context GB car manufacturers have not surprisingly decided against building all their cars to both GB and EU Vehicle Type Approval standards because this would involve their losing the benefits of Brexit. Given that the GB new car market represents 2 million units, while the NI market represents only 45,000 units, they have concluded there is more money to be made by limiting some cars to GB Type Approval because of increased sales prospects for them in the larger market.

The consequences of this for Northern Ireland are grim. In the first instance we are to be deprived of much of the choice we previously enjoyed. For example, it will not be possible to buy the most popular small car in the UK, the Vauxhall Corsa, from the beginning of next year because its engine does not meet EU Vehicle Type Approval. In the second instance, the new cars that we can buy are going to be more expensive both to buy and to tax in Northern Ireland because we are subject to more demanding EU environmental taxes. Finally, in a context where many people will stop buying new cars in Northern Ireland and instead travel to Great Britain to get their cars, the industry, which employs around 17,600 jobs in Northern Ireland, is likely to face significant job cuts.

It is in confronting this, and other Irish Sea Border costs, that one can begin to appreciate the EU’s grand plan. Brussels quickly worked out that so long as they could keep part of the UK in the EU, it would be quite impossible for the UK to do anything other than become an EU rule-taker in order prevent the country from doing the legislative splits.

The UK Government has responded on cue and has now announced that it will fix the presenting difficulty by bringing the requirements of GB Vehicle Type Approval exactly into line with EU Vehicle Type Approval. For a government that contains not a single minister who voted for Brexit, there must be something very satisfying about availing themselves of the means of invalidating Brexit for the whole UK left by the EU within the design of the Irish Sea Border. Since June there have been three sets of GB Vehicle Type Approval Regulations 2025, each of which has progressively brought the GB Vehicle Type Approval regime more into line with that of the EU.

This strategy, however, will not ‘work’ in its own terms unless, first, the two regimes are brought into complete alignment so there is no reason not to get all cars EU Vehicle Type Approval and, second, they have been aligned long enough for this to have impacted the Type Approval of the new cars ready to be taken to the showroom. During a debate on the first two sets of regulations in the Lords on 25^th November, (sadly the elected House has so far been denied a vote on this hugely important issue), the minister, Lord Hendy, seemed to acknowledge the need for both regimes to be the same by the time that only EU Vehicle Type Approved cars can be sold in Northern Ireland. He said of the current lack of alignment between GB and EU Vehicle Type Approval, ‘…we will have more to say on that shortly, and ahead of that deadline, to make sure that the deadline is not a hindrance to these processes and is capable of being adhered to.’

After Boris told Northern Ireland there would be no Irish Sea border, but then agreed to precisely that, there are some people in Ulster who would see in this latest GB twist, a certain poetic justice.

That has never been my view.

If we believe in the United Kingdom and that rather than breaking up into its component parts, mobilised by short-sighted, destructive, petty-nationalisms, we are better served by the relationship that is definitive by a functional union between England, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, then we have to resist the temptation of the ‘serves you right’ downward spiral.

We must instead come together from all corners of our country to rediscover a national sense of purpose and with it the national sense of dignity that resolves that never again will we enter negotiations with other countries with the votes of any of our citizens on the table. In this, rather than bowing down to the EU and accepting the imposition of their standards in the definition of GB Vehicle Type Approval, it is vital that they are opposed and that we instead demand the provision of a sensible UK Vehicle Type Approval regime that enables the whole United Kingdom to access Brexit rather than allowing key aspects of it to be taken from us.

As an initial step in this process, I, together with Iain Duncan Smith, Desmond Swayne, and colleagues from Northern Ireland moved, to annul the first set of regulations.

Going forward we must seek a change of Government and take the EU back to Mutual Enforcement, the border solution they developed. The subject of my Private Members Bill, Mutual Enforcement provides a means of delivering Brexit on a constitutionally sustainable basis, protecting the integrity of both the UK Internal Market for Goods, and the EU Internal Market for Goods, while avoiding a hard border across the island of Ireland.