The Windsor Framework is to be updated with a new rule that unionists sought to block more than a year ago.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Nick Thomas-Symonds announced in written statement to the House of Commons on Thursday the application of EU regulations on the protection of geographical indications (GI) for craft and industrial products.
In March last year, a so-called applicability motion tabled by the DUP, in which the party claimed the GI regulation would create a trade and regulatory border, was defeated by 49 votes to 32.
Coupled with December’s ultimately unsuccessful bid to apply the Stormont brake in relation to new rules on detergents, the DUP has sought twice unsuccessfully to block modifications to the Windsor Framework.
Cabinet Office minister Nick Thomas-Symonds (Gareth Fuller/PA)
Mr Thomas-Symonds said the new regulation will not create a new regulatory barrier between Britain and Northern Ireland.
SDLP MLA Matthew O’Toole MLA described the rule’s application as “a small but rational policy decision”.
“Since it relates to the craft sector and several potential beneficiaries of this scheme are all-Ireland craft products, such as Irish linen, it is common sense,” he said.
“The idea that it should prompt sound and fury from Jim Allister and others at a time of public service crisis is a sad indictment of their priorities.”
TUV leader Jim Allister said the British government decision, in the face of unionist opposition, was “yet more evidence that the much vaunted Safeguarding the Union deal was a farce”.
“This is the second occasion when the government has dismissed unionist concerns and ridden roughshod over their objections,” the North Antrim MP said.
“Far from safeguarding the union, the deal was one which amounted to surrendering the union as unionists meekly accepted a return to Stormont as protocol implementers.”