The Windsor Framework isn’t delivering for Great Britain-Northern Ireland trade. And it’s about to get worse

The agreement was struck in April 2023 by then UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and EU commissioner Ursula von der Leyen, before the UK Government further eased checks in April 2024. So, one year on, has the Windsor Framework been the silver bullet that was promised, or has it become more of a lead balloon?

The Northern Ireland Protocol had originally kept NI in the EU’s single market to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland – which caused huge headaches for British retailers and suppliers, who suddenly faced new bureaucracy and costs when shipping goods to NI.

By contrast, the Windsor Framework promised to allow food products being sold in NI to be made to UK standards rather than EU, removing the need for costly paperwork and controls on British goods arriving from across the Irish Sea. It did so by introducing the UK Internal Market Scheme – which brought in a system incorporating ‘the Green Lane’, a simplified route meant for goods staying in Northern Ireland, and ‘the Red Lane’, for goods that might end up heading south of the Irish border and therefore be subject to full EU customs and border requirements.

But just a year in, with a new phase that will affect GB-NI parcel movements just around the corner and a new Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (NIAC) enquiry scrutinising the framework, businesses from across the food industry have raised concerns about the framework’s effectiveness.

The new deal has ironed out some of the trade friction caused by the original protocol, says Nichola Mallon, head of trade and devolved policy at trade association Logistics UK. For example, the latest NI Consumer Council estimates, from July 2024, showed only 86 British retailers citing EU exit as the reason for not delivering to NI – down from 289 British retailers in June 2021.

Nonetheless, “there’s a consensus that [it] was to some extent oversold”, Mallon told the NIAC. “It created a misperception that all the challenges under the protocol have been removed”, which has “contributed to a lack of awareness, particularly among GB businesses, of the requirements that must be met under the Windsor Framework”. It also led to a “reluctance among some GB-based businesses to trade into NI because of the administrative and cost requirements”.

Plus, the reality of what’s happening at the UK borders is vastly different from original government promises. Take retailers regularly moving goods within the different UK domestic markets: the framework created the NI Retail Movement Scheme (NIRMS), a trusted trader scheme allowing food products to move from GB to NI with minimal paperwork and few routine checks.

But according to the NI Retail Consortium director Neil Johnston, the “simple system for operating NIRMS has become more complicated”, with the IT systems for validating paperwork having deteriorated in recent months. It can now take at least 30 minutes to process individual paper submissions, which has “generated inefficiencies within supply chains” and led to “additional delays and, occasionally, the rejection of lorries, impacting on retail operations”.

In addition, retailers have been reporting an increase in the percentage of vehicles being physically checked throughout 2024. When NIRMS was set out, the frequency of checks on retail goods was meant to decrease over time – from 10% in October 2023 to 5% by July 2025 – yet Johnston claims that’s not in line with the reality on the ground.

“Nearly all the supermarkets have had either actual trucks being sent back or attempts to do so, which should never happen. The level of checks hasn’t been reduced – in many cases it’s increasing.” He adds that “some members seem to be feeling the heat more than others, despite the fact we were reassured nobody would be put on the naughty step for failure to plan”.

Johnston argues the key notion of “trust” is still lacking from the scheme: “From our members’ perspective, particularly if you take the likes of Asda, Co-op, Sainsbury’s and Iceland” – which don’t have stores in the Republic – “there’s no reason why their products going into NI should end up in the Republic, but they’re being required to do vast amounts of paperwork. We’re not trying to get our goods secretly over the border into the south. We should be respected to comply.”

The unpredictability of controls is resulting in traders who have goods that qualify for the NIRMS route still choosing to go down the red lane because they say it’s “much more predictable, and they have the choice of serving both the EU and the NI markets”, Mallon explains.

And in the case of M&S and Tesco, which have big operations in the Republic, “they have track-and-trace technology they’ve invested in heavily, and they should be relied upon without vast levels of inspections and paperwork”, Johnston says.

Additionally, not everyone has been able to reap the benefits of the UK Internal Market Scheme’s reduced controls. It has, for instance, proved tough for groupage load carriers, whose regularly changing mixed consignments mean they move unpredictable loads that require different checks on different occasions.

These intricacies are leading to a rejigging of UK-EU supply chains, with more goods circulating on the island of Ireland now coming in from the EU via the Republic. “We’ve seen businesses set up hubs in the EU, whether that be in Dublin or on the continent, and that’s diverting investment and jobs from the UK,” says Jennifer Pheasey, director of public affairs at the Horticultural Trades Association.

Mallon confirms some supply chains have changed and that “certain products have come through the south”. But Johnston points out that for supermarkets across the island of Ireland that have looked at bringing goods in through the Republic, additional border costs mean “you’re looking at 20%-30% more expensive so it’s a complete non-runner”.

The biggest headache

Of all the challenges, the ‘Not for EU’ labelling rollout takes the trophy for biggest headache for traders. It was originally devised as a way to assure the EU that GB goods meant to stay in NI were properly identified so they wouldn’t accidentally end up retailing in the bloc’s single market.

But the rules were complex and often nonsensical. For example, if you were one of the many NI meat producers sending goods over to GB for further manufacturing and packaging, those goods would then need a ‘Not for EU’ label if returning to NI. Yet NI producers selling across the UK did not need those labels.

In both circumstances, the goods never left the UK internal market yet had to abide by different rules – leaving GB producers feeling “at a disadvantage versus local NI businesses”, says Provision Trade Federation director general Rod Addy.

In addition, where some products required box-level labels, others required product- or shelf-level labels, with the rules confusing suppliers and manufacturers alike. And plans to extend ‘Not for EU’ labelling requirements to the whole of the UK to appease unionists who claimed the rules would put off traders from shipping to NI also caused much ruckus among British businesses – particularly smaller ones that didn’t even trade in NI.

The new Labour government eventually backtracked on UK-wide ‘Not for EU’ labelling, but not until right before its implementation in October last year.

The radio silence from government “forced companies to take a massive gamble on whether they thought it would go ahead or not”, Addy recalls. “Consequently, some risked everything and did not change their labels, while others made changes to production schedules, packaging and labelling – that in some cases cost millions – only to discover it was completely unnecessary.”

Ultimately, suppliers had to decide whether to funnel everything through the red lane and potentially slow down product flow into Ireland or distribute two separate lines and foot the cost of ‘Not for EU’ labelling for one. In the recent NIAC hearing, it emerged many were choosing the former as it gave them more flexibility and fewer border hassles – especially helpful for wholesalers distributing across the whole island.

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On the other hand, there’s now a “blanket use of ‘Not for EU’ labelling across NI” because businesses simply struggle to understand the rules, says NI-based trade and customs consultant Jonathan Walsh. “I see cheese products made in Coleraine, NI, sitting beside cheese and hams from Donegal, Ireland, and all the labelling will say ‘Not for EU’ on both. That’s rubbish.”

However, it’s not just businesses that are confused and worried about the impacts of all this trade intricacy – consumers are too. Anne-Marie Murphy, director of strategy and emerging markets at the NI Consumer Council, says “food affordability and availability being impacted by these complexities is a key worry for consumers”.

And with one of the final stages of the Windsor Framework bringing in new customs requirements on parcel movements between Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1 May, consumers and businesses alike are also increasingly worried about “being able to get products from British suppliers”, Murphy adds.

“We’re seeing that through an awful lot of our research, especially across areas like home and furniture, garden plants and seeds, clothing and footwear, health and beauty products, technology and entertainment.”

A lot of the issues companies are experiencing could also be resolved by Labour’s closer ties with the EU – not least the landing of a long-promised sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) deal, which would align UK and EU food and safety standards and remove the need for a lot of the current red tape on agrifood products.

Additionally, NI is in the unique position where it has privileged access to both the UK and EU internal markets, and in theory that should be a trade booster rather than an obstacle.

For instance, Mallon says NI was sometimes used by Chinese exporters as an entry point to distribute to the rest of the EU, which could be tapped further. However, she adds, a lack of understanding among the EU that NI was actually part of its single market has meant losing out on business. She suggests the establishment of a NI economic envoy in the bloc to help improve business engagement.

“The focus has been very much on compliance with the Windsor Framework, but we need to realise the economic and trading opportunities,” she argues, adding NI businesses were worried they would be left “forgotten” amid the current geopolitical and trade climate. MPs reassured NI would “never be forgotten” – but until the numerous and varied challenges are addressed, the industry is not convinced.