Jim Allister MP argues that the “Stormont Brake” and “Applicability Motions” have failed to protect Northern Ireland’s democratic integrity. He calls for full re-enfranchisement, rejecting these “demeaning mechanisms” in favour of a solution that restores true citizenship and parliamentary accountability.
Time to Restore Northern Ireland Democracy
One of the key elements of the Safeguarding the Union deal, announced at the end of January 2024, was that it recognised that the Northern Ireland Protocol, and even the Windsor Framework, created a democratic deficit which needed to be fixed. The Command Paper came with new legislation to rise to this challenge in relation to the ‘Stormont Brake’, dealing with the amendment of existing EU law and ‘Applicability Motions’, dealing with the imposition of new EU laws. It stated clearly and unambiguously: ‘These are powerful democratic safeguards for the restored Northern Ireland institutions.’
While the UUP and DUP welcomed these provisions, the TUV rejected them as fanciful for two main reasons. First, even if these mechanisms worked, rather than saving our democracy, all they could do was confirm its erosion and the truncation of our citizenship. Instead of enjoying full citizenship, and the right to stand for election to make all the laws to which we are subject, these mechanisms implied that it was sufficient for part of the UK to be subject to a foreign Parliament in 300 areas, so long as we could stand for election to try and stop their application, subject to the absurd constraint that even if we were successful, we would have no right to make alternative laws in their place. Second, it seemed highly likely to the TUV that the complexity surrounding these two mechanisms was intended to afford maximum opportunity for their not actually stopping the application of any laws.
On 19 March 2024, the DUP sought to use the ‘Applicability Motion’ procedure for the first time and block new EU Regulation 2023/2411 (EU Geographical Indication Scheme) from applying to Northern Ireland. All unionists joined forces for this purpose, so the legislation failed. Instead of making good their commitment that the new mechanism would be a powerful democratic tool, however, the Government refused to make any response to the Assembly for over a year and then, when they finally did so, on 24 April 2025, it was to overrule the Assembly.[1]
On 20 December 2024, the DUP sought to use the other mechanism, the Stormont Brake, for the first time, to prevent the amendment to existing EU legislation, through Regulation (EU) 2024/2865 (On chemical labelling). Once again unionists joined forces to block the legislation only for the Westminster Government to once again overrule us on the grounds that the Secretary of State must diligently observe the Stormont Brake thresholds which, he claimed, are high and had not been met. (On this occasion the Government was required by law to respond within a month and so their decision came quickly in January 2025.[2])
On 24 April 2025, when the Government finally dealt with Regulation 2023/2411, it also announced that it was going to apply another completely new EU Regulation, the Critical Raw Materials – Regulation 2024/1252, without first affording Stormont the opportunity to scrutinise the legislation and vote on an Applicability Motion. Whitehall was effectively bypassing the ‘powerful democratic scrutiny mechanisms’ that it had provided. While we feared that the Government would find reasons to justify their rejecting Applicability Motions, it never even occurred to us that they would manifest such disdain for the Assembly that they would seek proactively to circumvent it entirely. The deployment of this tactic caused considerable concern and was challenged both by submissions made to the Murphy Review and arguments set before the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee.
However, any hope that the government might respond positively to this shot across their bows on the Critical Raw Materials regulation has now been dashed. On 28 January 2026 the Minister for Europe, Nick Thomas Symonds announced the decision of the Government to adopt precisely the same tactic in relation to another entirely new piece of EU legislation, the EU Vehicle Type Approval Regulations, Regulation (EU) 2025/14. Bypassing Stormont scrutiny and the Applicability Motion process once again, they announced their decision to accept the addition of the legislation to Northern Ireland statute at a meeting with the EU on 2 February.
Thus, to date the strong democratic protections provided by Safeguarding the Union have resulted in two attempts by the Assembly to block legislation, one using the Brake and one using the Applicability Motion, both of which were then blocked by the Government. More recently, however, we have seen the Government deploying the tactic of bypassing Stormont, altogether. Lest anyone thought that the circumvention of one of the strong democratic safeguards was a mistake, the second deliberate circumvention of it demonstrates just how meaningless these protections are.
The defence offered by the government’s new policy of deliberate circumvention rests on the fact that the law allows ministers to overrule an applicability motion if they believe that the ‘new EU act would not create a new regulatory border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.’ Quite apart from the fact that the manner of its presentation led people to believe that this particular government blocking mechanism would be deployed after Assembly scrutiny and the decision not to pass an Applicability Motion, rather than for the purpose of proactively circumventing it, there are two problems with the Government’s deployment of this defence.
First, the argument that the law would not create a border was the justification for overruling the determination of the Assembly to block Regulation 2023/2411 in April 2025, but this was not allowed to prevent Assembly scrutiny and a vote on an Applicability Motion.
Second, the justification provided for bypassing Stormont does not reach the necessary level of certainty in the relevant threshold. Far from asserting that the new law will not create a regulatory border, the Government applies a different and more flexible standard, stating: ‘manufacturers and traders are unlikely to face additional barriers to placing products on the Northern Ireland market or an incentive to cease doing so.’ Moreover, the lack of certainty in this regard is underlined by the fact that they go on to state: ‘In order to provide additional confidence that manufacturers and traders will not face new regulatory barriers to placing goods on the Northern Ireland market, the Government commits to taking any necessary steps to protect the UK’s internal market, including considering equivalent measures in Great Britain where necessary.’[3] Interestingly exactly the same kind of justification was provided in relation the Critical Raw Materials Regulation in April 2024. The difficulty in both cases is underlined by the fact that the Government cannot refuse to apply the Stormont Brake, because of its commitment to a very rigid and exacting approach to thresholds and then refuse to apply the Applicability Motion because of its commitment to a very flexible and elastic approach to thresholds.
Rather than allowing our experience of the deceit of the ‘powerful democratic safeguards’ to mobilise us to press the Government to properly uphold protections that are in any event broken, we should be moved to seek a solution that addresses the real injustice.
The Daily Telegraph initiated its ‘Campaign for Democracy’ because some local elections were to have been delayed for a year in England, a policy the Government has since been forced to abandon. Our elections have not simply been delayed. They have instead been taken from us and in relation to 300 areas of the laws to which we are subject.
In this context we must call out the Stormont Brake and Applicability Motions for what they would be even if they worked, profoundly demeaning mechanisms that entrench our second class citizenship; the fact that uniquely within the UK we cannot stand for election to make a significant portion of the laws to which we are subject.
The only way forward for the people of Northern Ireland is to rediscover our self-respect which means there can be no more question of acquiescing with the attempts of others to remove key aspects of our citizenship, even as they talk beguilingly about giving us ‘strong democratic safeguards.’ This requires, as a non-negotiable minimum, full re-enfranchisement and the avoidance of a hard border with the Republic through deployment of the border solution developed by former EU Commission Director General, Sir Jonathan Faull, Mutual Enforcement.
Jim Allister KC MP, Member of Parliament for North Antrim, Leader of the TUV
[3] https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-statements/detail/2026-01-28/hcws1280
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