Larne Border Control Post comes into operation as Jim Allister denounces ‘hard’ Irish Sea Border

Pictured: Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister KC MP; (background) Port of Larne, County Antrim

Permanent customs infrastructure operationalises Northern Ireland’s separation from Great Britain, warns TUV leader

A major permanent Border Control Post (BCP) has officially come into operation at the Port of Larne today, signalling what Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader Jim Allister KC MP has described as the formal cementing of a “hard” Irish Sea Border.

The post at Larne is the first significant permanent BCP to go live under the post-Brexit trading arrangements between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

A second major BCP is set to open at Belfast Port on 11 August. While smaller permanent posts have already opened in Warrenpoint (late June) and Foyle (early July), Allister stressed the vast majority of goods traffic will be processed through Larne and Belfast.

In a strongly worded statement, Mr Allister said the new infrastructure represents a “far-reaching constitutional” moment for Northern Ireland, one that underscores the region’s “disenfranchisement” from the UK internal market for goods.

“From today, the first major, permanent Border Control Post constructed to cement in a ‘hard’ Irish Sea Border, dividing the United Kingdom, will come into service,” he said.

Allister contended that today marks Northern Ireland’s exclusion from the UK internal market and its forced integration into an “all-Ireland Internal Market for goods,” without democratic consent.

“Today we have imposed on us the experience of being cut off from what has been our Internal Market for Goods, the UK Internal Market for Goods, and of being forced, without consent, into an all-Ireland Internal Market for goods,” he said.

The Larne facility, along with its counterparts, forms part of the wider border implementation arising from the Northern Ireland Protocol and the Windsor Framework, agreements made to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland while managing trade between the UK and EU.

Allister was highly critical of the so-called green lane system for goods staying in Northern Ireland, claiming it still entails “an alternative international border experience” and “does not facilitate the unfettered movement of an internal market.”

“Even under the green lane goods can only cross with an export number, international SPS and customs paperwork, subject to between 10 and 8% checks,” he stated.

“This is not a net benefit but in return for taking on the costs of alternative border frictions like having to successfully apply and maintain membership of a trusted trader scheme and carry Not for EU labels.”

He argued that Northern Ireland is now subject to EU laws “made by Dublin, and the rest of the EU,” and that these posts serve only to enforce that authority over Northern Ireland’s trade regime.

“These Border Control Posts serve a wholly ignoble purpose. They are there to protect the ‘integrity’ of the consequence of our disenfranchisement,” he said.

“Today is, as such, a day of humiliation both for the people of Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole.”

Calling for an alternative, Allister pointed to his EU Withdrawal Arrangements Bill, which promotes the concept of Mutual Enforcement – an arrangement he says was originally developed by the EU itself.

“There is a means of delivering Brexit while both respecting the territorial integrity of the United Kingdom and avoiding a hard border… It is called Mutual Enforcement,” he said.

In his concluding remarks, Allister questioned whether the UK Government, under its current leadership, retains the political will to protect national unity.

“If the UK is not prepared to stand up for itself and insist on a solution that respects its territorial integrity… then it is doubtful – certainly under the current government – that it has a future,” he warned.