Compounding the unionist party’s agony, it requested the brake over a matter so apparently trivial - font sizes on labels for chemical products - that it sounds like a satirical joke
Compounding the unionist party’s embarrassment, it requested the brake over a matter so apparently trivial - font sizes on labels for chemical products - that it sounds like a satirical joke
Benn’s refusal is so crushing it might once have been expected to destabilise devolution, and perhaps it will. But in a further humiliation, he has clearly judged the DUP too weak to cause trouble. Britain sells over £1 billion of chemical products to Northern Ireland annually, ranging from consumer items to industrial raw materials. The CIA believes some British suppliers will find relabelling uneconomic.
Benn did pay tribute to everyone at Stormont for working through the elaborate brake process. This begins with a cross-party assembly committee examining the impact of each new EU law. Since devolution was restored last February, over 30 have been reviewed without controversy. Unionism still had the numbers to request the brake via a petition to the speaker. This produced another perfect tribal split, receiving the support of every unionist assembly member and no one else. Signatures from liberal independents and members of the UUP did not convince nationalists or Alliance that unionism had a point. The SDLP called it a “DUP stunt”.
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