Brexit: DUP leader calls for 'decisive action' from Lord Frost

Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has reiterated his belief that "conditions have been met to trigger Article 16".

Article 16 is part of the Northern Ireland Protocol, the Brexit trade deal aimed at avoiding a hard Irish border.

It allows unilateral action by the UK or the EU if the protocol causes serious problems or diverts trade.

Sir Jeffrey has called for "decisive action" by the UK ahead of a meeting with Brexit Minister Lord Frost later.

The DUP leader said Northern Ireland was being harmed "on a daily basis" because of the trading arrangements in the protocol, adding that triggering Article 16 was the "right thing to do".

Separately, the leader of the Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) Billy Hutchinson has called for "corrective action" to restore Northern Ireland's constitutional position within the union.

Mr Hutchison said the "constitutional guarantee" in the Good Friday Agreement was "not as was promised to the unionist community" and he called for a "rebalancing" of how the 1998 peace deal is being implemented in relation to the Northern Ireland Protocol.

The unionist party leaders' remarks come after a weekend of high-profile criticism of the British government's position on the protocol from both within the UK and the EU.

The protocol keeps Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for goods, unlike the rest of the UK, and led to new checks on goods arriving into Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

Supporters argue it has created new opportunities for Northern Ireland businesses, but opponents say it undermines the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and disrupts supply chains.

The Northern Ireland Protocol was negotiated between the EU and the British government in late 2019, but the UK government now wants significant reform of the agreement.

Brexit Minister Lord Frost, who helped to negotiate the protocol in 2019, argues the arrangement is now harming the peace process in Northern Ireland.

It also offered to change to current laws to ensure no disruption to moving medicines across the Irish Sea.

However, the UK said more fundamental change was still required, including removing the European Court of Justice from an oversight role.

On Monday, he said it was time for the the British government to take decisive action.

"The EU came to the table, they put proposals on the table, and being a fair-minded person I felt that we should allow more time to explore those proposals to see if the EU were prepared to go further, but at the moment they haven't," Sir Jeffrey told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster programme on Monday.

"What they have proposed is not nearly adequate enough in terms of addressing the difficulties caused by the protocol, so in those circumstances, yes, the government should trigger Article 16 if agreement cannot be reached with the European Union on a solution that is agreeable to both sides."

Article 16 exists to fix difficulties with the Northern Ireland Protocol that are causing serious problems or causing diversion of trade.

The UK government says that threshold was reached long ago and so it can be used legitimately.

But the EU fears the UK is planning to use Article 16 in an expansive way - to gut the protocol, sweep away the Irish Sea border and open up a potential back door into the single market.

The EU may argue that the broader Brexit trade deal only happened because the issue of the Irish border had been sorted out first.

Therefore if the UK collapses that border solution the EU may give notice that it intends to collapse the trade deal.

Meanwhile, the leader of the PUP has described the protocol as a "real and present threat" to the substance of the union between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

In a detailed statement posted to the PUP's website, Mr Hutchinson said a recent legal challenge to the protocol had "exposed the principle of consent to be little more than a deceptive snare".

Mr Hutchinson was part of the loyalist negotiating team for the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

The PUP statement said the party's support for the 1998 deal was "rooted in the purported guarantee provided by the principle of consent".

"We urged support for the agreement on the basis that the union was safe, so long as a majority of persons living here wished it to be so," he said.

"It is my view that if, as is currently the case, the constitutional guarantee is not as was promised to the unionist community, then there is no basis for unionist support for the Belfast Agreement."

However, speaking to the BBC's Talkback programme, Mr Hutchinson explained the PUP was not withdrawing its support for the deal signed in 1998, but was campaigning for changes to how that deal is currently being implemented in relation to the protocol.

At Stormont on Monday, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) called on Lord Frost and senior members of the DUP to "think very carefully" about the language they use in relation to the protocol.

Colum Eastwood claimed they were "creating more and more instability on the streets of Northern Ireland".

"We should take away the threat to these institutions, we should take away the pretence that there's some big battle around the protocol when it's absolutely clear to anybody that the European Union have offered the people of Northern Ireland everything that they asked for."

Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Micheál Martin told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that "nothing is certain" in relation to the UK's threat to trigger Article 16 as talks were still ongoing, but he repeated his view that such a move would be "reckless and irresponsible".

In a weekend statement, the UK government said that it had been "consistently clear" that it would prefer to "settle the issues arising from the operation of the Northern Ireland Protocol consensually and reach a positive outcome through negotiations".

However, it said it was its responsibility "to safeguard peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland, and we will use Article 16 if necessary".