UUP Leader Steve Aiken OBE MLA has written to the four other Executive party leaders calling for a collective position on calling for changes to agricultural checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain as a result of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The text of the letter is as follows:
Northern Ireland Protocol – Agricultural Checks
The opportunity exists for us all collectively to call on both Michael Gove and EU Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič to help facilitate and enact changes to how agriculture checks are carried out on the Irish Sea Border. The political significance of all five Executive party leaders calling for these changes, which would significantly be to the betterment of Northern Ireland, would give impetus to these very necessary changes.
While we will not reach a collective position on the NI Protocol, apart from the shared understanding that it’s not working, this approach would at least show that we are collectively working for the benefit of all of our people.
Therefore, I am asking you as the leaders of the Executive parties to join with me in calling for the adoption of whatever changes to agriculture checks that are required to remove these onerous requirements.