Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom Internal Market

Post-Brexit Northern Ireland occupies a unique position in the internal market of the United Kingdom due, primarily, to the Protocol on Ireland / Northern Ireland, or Windsor Framework. Agreed as part of the UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement, the Protocol/Windsor Framework provides that EU Single Market rules concerning the free movement of goods, customs, VAT, state aid and energy markets, continue to apply in Northern Ireland, despite it having formally left the EU along with the rest of the UK. To allow for the domestic implementation of the novel arrangements for post-Brexit Northern Ireland, set out in the Protocol/Windsor Framework, the UK Internal Market (UKIM) Act 2020 includes a series of specific provisions that except goods entering and leaving Northern Ireland from the ‘market access principles’ established by the UKIM Act 2020 in certain circumstances. This commentary introduces the UKIM Act 2020 then presents a review of its provisions that are specifically dedicated to post-Brexit Northern Ireland. Written in September 2023 the analysis then provides an assessment of the implications of measures agreed between the UK and EU laid down in the Windsor Framework texts which were published in February of this year. Based on the analysis of the UKIM Act 2020 set against the backdrop of the Protocol, then Windsor Framework, the commentary argues that the position of Northern Ireland post-Brexit is not only newly unique but also newly consequential for those both inside and outside its borders.