Windsor Framework: Former leaders join talks panel

The DUP is setting up an eight-member panel including former party leaders to gauge opinion on the Windsor Framework.

Leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said Baroness Foster and Peter Robinson would be part of the group that would have a "focused consultation".

He has insisted the DUP will take time before coming to a "collective decision" on whether to back the deal announced by the UK and EU.

The panel will collate information and feed it into government discussions.

The consultation group will also include MP Carla Lockhart, Lord Weir, Ross Reed, John McBurney and assembly members Brian Kingston and Deborah Erskine.

It comes as government officials held separate talks with the Stormont parties on Monday about the new post-Brexit arrangements.

The government is considering legislation to reassure unionists over Northern Ireland's constitutional place in the UK.

The government is also expected to provide more detail on how the so-called Stormont Brake is going to work.

It aims to give MLAs more of a say in how new EU laws will apply in Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris is not taking part in Monday's discussions.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is boycotting Northern Ireland's devolved government at Stormont until its concerns about post-Brexit trading arrangements are addressed.

What does it tell us that two former DUP leaders have joined forces with the current leader to work out the party's next move?

It is partially about providing political cover to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson as he attempts to reach a collective position within his party on the new Brexit deal.

The addition of DUP legal and business voices in the group is an attempt to cast the net wider than elected representatives.

And we learned that a decision could come sooner than later, even by the end of this month, if all goes to plan.

Sir Jeffrey denied that the panel opens up a pathway that could allow the DUP to set aside its seven tests on the deal and switch the focus to whatever this new group comes up with.

But could it become a means to an end, and one which could ultimately see an end to the DUP boycott of power-sharing?

Sir Jeffrey said he was putting in place a timeline of "within the current month" for the DUP to come to a clear view on the framework.

"I'm not setting the end of March as the deadline I'm saying we want to complete our processes by then," he said.

"I want to get this right however long that takes, it's important to get that right."

He added that the upcoming 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement was in no way a "factor in his thinking" about coming to a decision on the deal.

The framework was signed to alter Brexit's Northern Ireland Protocol, and it was announced last week after months of talks.

It will mean goods moving from Great Britain which are staying in Northern Ireland would use a "green lane" at Northern Ireland ports, meaning they should face minimal paperwork and no routine physical checks.

Goods which are due to travel into the Republic of Ireland would use a "red lane", meaning they face customs processes and other checks.

The brake would allow the assembly to raise an objection to a new goods rule.

Meanwhile, former secretary of state Karen Bradley has described the Windsor Framework as "phenomenal".

Ms Bradley, who served under Prime Minister Theresa May four years ago, was co-chairing a session of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly at Stormont on Monday.

Members of the assembly met to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.

The assembly includes MPs from Westminster, TDs (members of the Irish Parliament) and senators from Dublin, as well as a number of Stormont politicians and peers from Northern Ireland.

She said: "To actually have reopened that treaty and to be in a position where we have a different environment in which goods can move from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, a different relationship - it is a real achievement.

"I just want the parties to get behind it to make it work and implement it."