Alistair Lexden has, on many occasions, condemned Boris Johnson’s Northern Ireland Protocol of 2019. It created an intolerable trade barrier within the UK and provoked uproar among Unionists in Northern Ireland. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) left the Northern Ireland Assembly in protest. Fundamental changes have now been made to the Protocol as a result of the Windsor Framework, agreed at the end of February after intense negotiations with the EU. Though the Framework has not won the support of the DUP, it is a considerable achievement, as Alistair Lexden stressed in the following short speech delivered in the Lords on 29 March. He said:
We should recognise that It is entirely understandable that the Democratic Unionist Party should find it impossible to support the Windsor Framework in its current form.
It was betrayed by Boris Johnson in 2019, and it is natural that it should seek a complete reversal of that betrayal.
In the Northern Ireland elections last year, it set out fully the tests against which it would judge any proposals to deal with the acute problems created by the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The party has examined the Windsor Framework carefully against its tests, and concluded that it does not meet them all.
At some point, the DUP will itself be tested—at the ballot box, when the next elections take place in Northern Ireland
Those elections will show whether the party has correctly interpreted the wishes of that part of the electorate which supports it.
In the meantime. the Windsor Framework will be implemented. Our country—our Union as a whole-- will be able judge its efficacy.
That surely is the right way to proceed. Our Prime Minister conducted the negotiations which led to the Framework with immense tenacity and skill, showing a mastery of detail which we have not seen in a holder of his office for quite some time.
Let us see what the implementation of the Framework brings. It may show that further change is needed. In that case the astute negotiator in Number 10 will have further work to do.
But for now, let us rejoice that, surely, there are grounds for satisfaction that Northern Ireland’s Union with the rest of country is infinitely stronger than it was just over a month ago, before the Windsor Framework was agreed. It is a compromise, of course--just like the Belfast Agreement 25 years ago.
