As the deadline for the implementation of the new Irish Sea Parcels Border approaches, set for September 30, 2024, TUV leader Jim Allister MP warns that the impacts and initial disruption is already being felt across Northern Ireland.
The North Antrim MP has voiced significant concerns over the impending changes, highlighting the economic and logistical challenges that are beginning to surface.
Commenting on approaching date, Mr Allister said:
“The disruption it is causing is already evident as increasing numbers of providers based in the rest of the country are deciding to discontinue trading with Northern Ireland, not because it is not legal for them to do so, but because the imminent erection of the parcels border imposes additional complexity and costs which makes it uneconomic for them to do so.
“However, despite repeated assurances of the provision of information to enable both producers and hauliers to prepare, and promises of regular briefings by the Trader Support Service (provided by the UK Government through a Fujitsu consortium), I am deeply concerned to hear that the difficulties surrounding the coming of the border are now being compounded by a lack of clarity about the parcels border processes making it very difficult for hauliers to prepare or advise their customers.
“If the practical consequences of dividing our country with this parcels border are so distasteful that the Government has decided to not to provide information about the relevant processes, despite numerous requests, until the final weeks – and who knows may be not until the last week – this only serves to underline the fundamental injustice of what they are seeking to do.
“Rather than being complicit in undermining the United Kingdom, taking from us the ability to send parcels freely from one part of the country to another part (as in any other free country), this is the moment for the new Government to acknowledge that what its predecessor had planned was unjust.
“Instead of settling for an Irish Sea border that destroys the UK internal market for goods and disenfranchises 1.9 million people, the new Government should make it clear to Brussels that in order to be acceptable going forward, any border solution cannot be permitted to divide our own country.”