Small businesses are being ‘crucified’ at the sea border

The Assembly will vote this week on whether Northern Ireland’s Brexit deal, the Windsor Framework, should continue to operate for the next four years.

This effectively keeps NI inside the EU single market for goods.

This means cross-border goods trade with the EU country Republic of Ireland remains untouched by Brexit.

The flip side is that goods coming into the UK from elsewhere are subject to controls and checks – at what is known as the Irish Sea border.

The sea border is taking physical shape in Larne Harbour, with a new border control post under construction.

Before Brexit, livestock coming from other parts of the UK were checked here, but the new facility, built to EU specifications, is much larger.

Businesses are dealing with the new checks and their associated bureaucracy From 2021, when the original version of the frameworkThe Northern Ireland Protocol began to be implemented.

For many larger companies, the impacts have now mostly been digested.

They have, at a cost, hired people and implemented processes to ensure that goods continue to flow out of GB.

All major UK supermarkets are still in NI and some are continuing to expand.

The chief executive of a large agri-food company told the BBC that maritime boundaries are now rarely discussed within the business.

However, the maritime border remains an unexpected challenge for small companies with fewer resources.

The BBC first spoke to Michael and Lesley Cairnduff At his pet food business in Newcastle, County Down in 2021.

At that time they had not been able to get their supplies from GB on pallets shipped in the normal way, commercially, for almost four months.

Their supplier adapted and goods were able to flow again.

“We were lucky they supported us,” Mr Cairnduff said. “They took all the necessary measures.”

However, it still takes too much time to deal with maritime border issues.

“Small businesses are being crucified,” he said. “We are not getting the support neither from the system nor from the politicians that was promised.”

Ms Kernduff said: “Yesterday I spent two hours dealing with pallet arrival problems. I shouldn’t be doing that. We should be spending our time helping customers, not filling out paperwork for pallets.”

In the early days of maritime border operations, there were Some apocalyptic predictions of supply chain collapse,

This did not happen, partly because the agreement as originally agreed was never implemented.

The EU eventually accepted that arrangements for carrying food and medicines would be impractical and that NI would have to stick closer to some UK rules.

If there was no movement in the maritime boundary, there was no rise in the maritime boundary either.

The Windsor Framework means that NI has unique dual market access: NI-based manufacturers have better access to the EU single market than firms based in GB, while also retaining full access to the UK market.

It is this arrangement that led former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to describe NI as “an incredibly special place” and “the most exciting economic region in the world”.

The principle is that any international manufacturer that wants to service both the UK and EU should establish itself in NI.

However, the chief executive of Invest NI, NI’s inward investment agency, says this has not yet happened.

Speaking at Stormont in October, Kieran Donoghue said: “The level of awareness of the opportunities presented by dual market access is still relatively low.

“Over time, there will be opportunities for foreign direct investment.”

Stuart Anderson of the NI Chamber of Commerce said it is important to remember that the framework is protecting supply chains that cross land borders, particularly in the highly integrated agri-food sector.

He points to Department for the Economy projections in 2019 that suggested a no-deal Brexit would mean “a material and sustained disruption” to those supply chains.

“Four years later, we are not there. The framework has brought certainty and stability to allow the free flow of trade,” he said.

“Some of our members who are exporting to the Republic and further to Europe are reaping the benefits.”

Looking at the maritime border, he says surveys of his members show that while most now consider it manageable, a “significant minority” are saying the arrangements remain “a serious challenge”.

It can be difficult to see the effect of the maritime border in Northern Ireland’s economic data.

This is most evident in trade data, which shows trade between both parts of the island at a record high.

This suggests that some products that NI businesses or consumers were getting from GB are now coming from Ireland or the wider EU.

Official figures show NI has made a much better recovery from the pandemic than the UK average.

However, this growth has come almost entirely from the services sector, which is not included in the Windsor Framework.

In contrast, manufacturing output has been flat, with energy costs, skills shortages and disruptions to global trade appearing to outweigh the benefits of dual market access.

If, as seems likely, the Assembly votes to retain the Windsor Framework, businesses will continue to grapple with the maritime border.

This weekend we will see that the border is not a fixed and stable system.

An update to EU product safety regulations, which apply in NI, means some businesses in GB face new rules when selling to Northern Ireland.

The change poses a particular challenge for micro-businesses selling through online platforms, with some saying they will no longer be able to move their goods across sea borders.