What will the next chapter in UK-EU relations bring for NI?

In 2019, Boris Johnson fought and won the UK general election with the slogan “Get Brexit Done”.

It was a safe bet that voters were fed up with years of exhausting political drama and wanted the government to make a deal and move on.

We had to wait until 2024 for Brexit to finally be “realized” in Northern Ireland.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the largest unionist party, reached a a grudging accommodation with the arrangements negotiated between the EU and the UK.

These arrangements preserve an open border for goods between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, at the cost of new controls on goods arriving from the rest of the United Kingdom.

The DUP ended its two-year boycott of the devolved government in early 2024 and, with Stormont's support, Brexit was no longer at the center of local politics.

A vote by the Stormont Assembly at the end of December means that the special Brexit deal for Northern Ireland will continue to apply for at least four years.

Brexit remains an issue to be handled sensitively and a series of problems to be resolved, but most of the political tension is gone.

Even when unionist parties triggered the Stormont Brake to try to prevent new EU regulations being implemented in NI, it was was met with a muted response from nationalism and the British government.

A border in the Irish Sea remains, albeit in a modified and simplified state compared to the original 2019 agreement.

The DUP returned to the NI Executive in February after agreeing the 'Saving the Union' document with the UK Government.

This was largely an overhaul of the 2023 Windsor framework, which sought to simplify the processes of moving goods from GB to NI.

It was Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's deal and he boasted that it would remove the post-Brexit border between GB and NI.

After the shock of Donaldson's arrest and resignation in March, his successor admitted deal was oversold and the Irish Sea border still exists.

In June, DUP leader Gavin Robinson told his party: “We will continue to fight to fully restore Northern Ireland's place within the United Kingdom, including by removing the application of EU law in our country and the internal Irish Sea border it creates. »

But there was no suggestion the fight would involve another withdrawal from Stormont.

The feeling that the Brexit era was coming to an end was also accompanied Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney's decisions to leave elected politics in 2024.

As Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) and Foreign Minister, they led the Irish response to Brexit.

They achieved their objectives of maintaining an open border with NI and preserving Ireland's place in the EU single market.

This earned them tributes from NI's nationalist politicians, but many unionists criticized their legacy, accusing them of distorting and damaging the Good Friday Agreement.

In some ways, Brexit in Northern Ireland is not yet over because the Windsor Framework is not yet fully implemented.

The new customs procedures for parcels and cargo, which were due to come into force at the beginning of October 2024, have been postponed until March 2025 at the earliest.

It is also unclear what the final arrangements will be for supply of veterinary medicines to NI.

A potential solution to the issue of veterinary medicines and much else lies in a revised comprehensive agreement between the UK and the EU.

The prospects of such an outcome increased as Labor swept to victory in the British general election in July.

One of the party's pledges was to seek a new deal for agri-food products traded between the UK and the EU with the aim of “removing most of the border controls created by the Conservative Brexit deal” .

Such a deal could – in one fell swoop – erase the most obvious physical impacts of the post-Brexit Irish Sea border between Britain and Ireland.

Simply put, if a new deal ends checks on goods moving from Dover to Calais, checks will also end from Cairnryan to Belfast.

The Prime Minister has appointed Nick Thomas-Symonds as his new EU chief and, during a first visit to NI, he said he was looking for an “ambitious” agreement.

Exactly what the UK is seeking and what might be offered by the EU has since proven difficult to discern.

Negotiations are expected to begin in the spring, by which time it should be clearer what the next chapter of UK-EU relations will look like for Northern Ireland.