https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpq95yx3p3eo
Unionist parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly will pull the Stormont Brake for the first time in an attempt to stop new EU rules on packaging and labelling of chemicals from applying in Northern Ireland.
The brake is part of Northern Ireland's Brexit deal and gives the Stormont assembly the power to object to changes to EU rules that apply in Northern Ireland.
It needs the support of 30 assembly members from at least two parties.
All eligible unionist assembly members have supported a DUP motion for the pulling of the brake.
'Host of new requirements'
Once that has formally happened at the assembly it will be up to the British government to judge if the brake has been used appropriately.
It is understood that the Stormont committee which scrutinises relevant EU legislation will publish a report on the rule on Friday.
Its finding may influence the government's view on whether the rule meets the threshold on the use of the brake.
The main condition for it is that it must be shown that the rules would have "a significant impact specific to every day life of communities in Northern Ireland" in a way that is liable to persist.
DUP leader Gavin Robinson said: "This EU regulation introduces a host of new requirements for labels attached to chemical products, including new minimum font sizes and rules around spacing.
"This would make current labels unusable for the majority of products.
"Critically, these changes would not be required for products on the market in Great Britain.
"The Chemical Industries Association (CIA), which represents chemical and pharmaceutical companies across the United Kingdom, has assessed that the regulation would have a significant, negative and prolonged impact on everyday life in Northern Ireland."
What are the government's options?
If the government assesses the brake has been used appropriately it then begins a process with the EU.
The Joint Committee – the UK-EU body responsible for overseeing the Brexit deal – is required to discuss the rule in question.
Once those discussions are concluded the UK government can either send it back to the assembly for a cross-community vote known as an applicability motion or decide the rule should not apply in Northern Ireland.
At that stage the government could still avoid a Stormont vote if it assesses there are "exceptional circumstances" including an assessment that the rule would not create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
If the UK ultimately decides not to adopt the rule, the EU can take "appropriate remedial measures", which could include measures to address the fact that NI goods may no long fully comply with EU law.
In March, Stormont used an applicability motion to block a new EU rule on the protection of geographical indications (GI) for craft and industrial products.
At that time the government said it had noted the assembly vote and in October said it "continues to evaluate the implications."
What is the Stormont Brake?
Gavin Robinson has short grey hair and black framed glasses. He is wearing a black suit, dark plain tie and white shirt. Trees are in the background.Image source, Pacemaker press
Image caption,
Gavin Robinson said the EU regulation introduces a host of new requirements
The Stormont Brake was introduced last year as part of the Windsor Framework.
It gives the Northern Ireland Assembly a greater say on how EU laws apply to Northern Ireland – a key demand of the Democratic Unionist Party's before it ended its boycott of power-sharing.
The framework is the special Brexit deal which applies to Northern Ireland and means it continues to follow some EU laws relating to goods.
by HeWasDeadAllAlong
18 comments
I guess it makes a change from them pulling the heads off themselves
Brexit is a bag of shit – all of it, not just the entirely predictable outcomes it’s biggest cheerleaders are now gurning about.
If there’s a better way to mitigate the harm of Brexit, let’s do it. But stop pretending Brexit can be done without significant downsides. It can’t, as it’s a bag of shit.
Why does Gavin Robinson, the largest MP, simply not eat the others?
>DUP leader Gavin Robinson said: “This EU regulation introduces a host of new requirements for labels attached to chemical products, including new minimum font sizes and rules around spacing.
>”This would make current labels unusable for the majority of products.
>”Critically, these changes would not be required for products on the market in Great Britain.
How difficult is it to change labels?
It’s their policy – Brexit in every way.
Unionists are utterly delusional.
What about the embarrassment of letting the UK government know that we’ve got 30 lunatic assembly members who don’t know how we will cope having to change the font on a label. How the fuck will they ever take this place seriously?
Big Gav making an angry speech about not liking the thing that his party campaigned for, despite everyone else butting their heads against a brick wall trying to tell them it wouldn’t work. ‘It was only meant to piss off them’uns, it wasn’t meant to piss off our’uns.’
Let them eat labels.
In the manner of the Centenary Stone so reviled by Sectarian Shinn Fayne, I think there should be an _actual_ brake installed outside Parliament Buildings, designed so that it will take the strength of 30 humans to pull it down.
30 normal-sized humans, now… not 30 bone-crunching Robinson ogres.
Ridiculous. This is another smoky bacon crisps fiasco. The eu are applying really sensible regulations to chemicals. The stormont mlas are listening to the pharmaceutical companies instead of the safety regulators. Another case of big business interfering in sensible government to advance their own agendas.
Regardless the uk chemical companies all very likely sell and market in the EU so they will need to comply anyway.
A storm in a teacup. As a citizen I want focus on sewerage, housing, infrastructure, water quality. I don’t give a shit about big pharma.
> it will be up to the British government to judge if the brake has been used appropriately.
So no then
let’s see the penny drop when they realise the uk gov does not care
Oh wait we have been waiting for it to drop for how many years now
If anyone’s wondering when we’ll start to see all the “Best of both worlds” benefits of Brexit for NI having one foot in each jurisdiction this kind of stunt by Unionism is precisely why you won’t. Ever. Companies looking to invest hundreds of millions won’t fail to notice that the state-let is a basket case; one whose political institutions can be ground to a halt on any day ending with a y.
There’s an actual government just down the road if they want to base themselves in the only native English speaking country in the EU.
Is this a wast of public funding.
What percentage of the north’s population have a problem with EU standards applying there? Maybe 20%? The people that live in these areas?
https://preview.redd.it/wr3zv82qdv7e1.png?width=393&format=png&auto=webp&s=31db05983073199be9802de315c1444a37d03ea2
So I happen to run a chemical company in Northern Ireland and as such know many of the other chemical companies in Northern Ireland. We all trade cross border with both GB and ROI and our supply chains are worldwide. We will all end up complying with the EU version of the rules in order to maintain access to ROI or the wider EU.
In fact the new rules give us a competitive advantage over GB competitors as we are established in the EU by default encouraging NI customers to buy locally.
This seems like a pretty stupid use of the brake to me, especially as the requirement to appoint an EU established representative has already been brought in via the GPSR regs that just took force and they don’t seem to be applying the brake to those.
I also note that the consultation list contains no actual NI based companies, just trade bodies. Certainly nobody consulted me.
Yeooooow, they’re going to pull the brake off themselves.
The Stormont MLA’s are listening to the pharmaceutical companies instead of the safety regulators. This.
“Minimum font sizes and spacing.”
I hate bad kerning as much as the next weird obsessive nerd. Can we not have an EU regulation on more dangerous things, like banning Comic-Sans?
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