We should bank deal, says Donaldson; DUP leader issues challenge to critics - What have you delivered?

​The DUP leader said routine checks on the green lane have been removed. The UK government has committed to “replacing a narrow green lane concept with a broader UK internal market system and a new internal market guarantee to protect the historic trade flows within the UK’s internal market”.

Speaking at a press conference with the NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris last night, Sir Jeffrey also challenged his opponents to publish the details of the changes they have secured.

He said: “Some of those who are our critics really don’t want Stormont back – that is the reality.”

Some, he said, live in a “bygone era”.

“Yes, I did share platforms with people. And all of us declared what our objectives were, all of us.

“The difference between me and those who are my critics tonight is very clear and very simple – I got off the platform and went and did something to secure my objectives.

“My critics got off the platform and did nothing.”

He added: “I can demonstrate very clearly what we have delivered and it’s there for everyone to read.

“My question to my critics is: ‘What have you delivered? What change have you secured?’

“Well, I have to say that I think if they were to set out in a paper the changes that they have secured, that’s what it would look like.”

Holding aloft the blank back page of the deal he had struck with the government, he continued: “A big blank sheet of nothing.”

Yesterday, the government published its command paper and legal amendments to existing laws as part of a deal with the DUP to “safeguard” Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.

Sir Jeffrey said he has secured changes from the Windsor Framework text – calling it an “enhancement of what was agreed” before.

He said: “The measures agreed … with the EU means somewhere in the region of four million product movements will no longer be subject to tariffs, customs declarations and so on – they will flow through the new internal UK market system – these are the kind of gains we can make.”

Under the Windsor Framework, British goods entering Northern Ireland and staying in Northern Ireland travel through the green lane. Under the new arrangements, routine checks on the green lane will be removed.

However, to access the green lane, businesses will still have to register to be part of the UK internal market scheme.

TUV leader Jim Allister has criticised the “insult of having to be in a trusted trader scheme to trade in your own country”.

The framework’s red lane for goods travelling to – or at risk of entering – the EU will remain, but the DUP aim to shrink the number of goods which will have to take that route. Many manufacturing goods automatically enter the red lane, as they are deemed at risk of entering the EU.

The fundamentals of the Windsor Framework remain in place. However, the government says the new measures – set alongside the progress made in the Windsor Framework – operate entirely consistently with Northern Ireland’s place in the UK – “including as expressed by the Acts of Union in its modern context”.

After a meeting in Belfast with the Irish deputy prime minister Michael Martin just ahead of the deal being announced yesterday, UUP leader Doug Beattie said: “What we are really talking about is the application of the Windsor Framework.”

Mr Beattie said that the Irish government, EU and Sinn Fein were “pretty comfortable” with the deal.

Mr Allister believes the arrangements secured by the DUP don’t go anywhere near far enough.

The North Antrim MLA said: “It is not the honeyed words of the government’s Command Paper which matter but the legal consequences of their mere statutory instruments.”

He said “it is clear the negotiations with the DUP were within the confines of the protocol” and said that the DUP has “no mandate for the deal they are about to do”.

Sir Jeffrey also responded to reports that some roads may be blocked as part of loyalist protests.

He said: “How will that restore Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom? How will that make Northern Ireland work?”

​