The British Social Attitudes Survey in 2024 demonstrated that public trust in government is now lower than it has been at any time in the last fifty years. At one point in the late eighties the number of people saying they trusted government almost never was under 10% but last year it was around 45% and on a sharp upwards trajectory. By contrast those identifying with the proposition that they trusted government all or most of the time had fallen from 40% to around 13% in the same period.
Many hoped that the new government elected on 4 July 2024 would be better at building trust than its predecessor but sadly the lack of alignment between the way in which they presented themselves before the election and their subsequent conduct have left a lot to be desired. If you want to build trust in government, as in any other area of life, the most basic imperative is to tell people the truth. No one feels disposed to trust those who they know have lied to them in the past, especially if they have gone to elaborate lengths to try to conceal their deceit while apparently conducting themselves with sincerity and conviction. These principles are particularly important for the current government for reasons I set out in a debate I secured last week.
The idea of an ‘Internal Market’ has an established meaning. Goods can move freely within an internal market, unfettered by the demands of an international Sanitary-Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) border (in plain English a plant and animal health border) and customs border. When goods reach the international SPS and customs border they reach the limit of the internal market in which they have been moving. The border can only be crossed if the goods then submit to ‘border frictions’ which ‘fetter’ their movement. Depending on the nature of the goods there will be a need to complete international SPS and customs paperwork and submit to various checks and sometimes pay duties. The movement across this border is not an ‘internal market movement’ but a movement from one internal market for goods into another.
In order to persuade the DUP to go back into Stormont in January 2024 the then Government argued that while they could not remove the border in the Irish Sea completely, they had developed a mechanism that largely removed it. They said that going forward at least 80% of freight would move in the UK Internal Market System and that less than 20% would have to encounter the border. They backed this up with something called the ‘Internal Market Guarantee’ the promise that at least 80% of freight would move in the UK Internal Market. The new Government has adopted this arrangement with even greater enthusiasm than the Conservatives because of changes that it has made to the enforcement of this arrangement.
Whereas the Safeguarding the Union document gave responsibility for ensuring that the Internal Market Guarantee was met to Inter-Trade UK and the Independent Monitoring Panel, alongside other responsibilities, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland repurposed the Independent Monitoring Panel in February 2025, making the Internal Market Guarantee its key, focused concern.
The Panel’s first reporting period for the Internal Market Guarantee is the 6 months from January to June 2025 and its report could be published at any time.
There is in this arrangement a huge difficulty and one with very serious implications for trust in politics. The term the UK Internal Market System infers that we are looking at the arrangements pertaining to the UK Internal Market for Goods, within which internal market movements take place across the UK without being fettered by an international SPS or customs border. However, when we look at what the so-called ‘UK Internal Market System’ involves it is not arrangements pertaining to unfettered internal market movements, but rather fettered international trade border movements. You can only make a goods movement under this ‘UK Internal Market System’ if you have an export number and submit to customs formalities (set by EU Regulation 2023/1128) and international SPS border formalities (set by EU Regulation 2023/1231) and if you are subject to 100% documentary checks and some identity checks at Border Control Posts. Goods moving on this basis are not ‘internal market movements’ that can be validated by an internal market guarantee.
The attempt to try to persuade people that at least 80% of goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland constitute internal market movements has to be one of the most audacious deceptions ever presented by a modern British government to its people. The truth is that it does not matter how goods are moved from Great Britain to Northern Ireland (and they must move either through the misnamed UK Internal Market System or the Red Lane), they all require an export number, some customs paperwork and some international SPS paperwork in relation to which they are subject to 100% documentary checks and some identity checks at Border Control Posts. As such none of these movements constitute Internal market movements. They are all fettered movements across a trade border that is causing significant diversion of trade in violation of Article 16 of the Windsor Framework.
When it comes to trust, the current government risks making things much worse if it goes ahead and publishes a report designed to give the public the impression that it either has met or not met an Internal Market Guarantee, when the misnamed ‘UK Internal Market System’ and Red Lane don’t make provision for internal market movements. They just present alternative ways of crossing a customs and international SPS border.
In the interest of treating its citizens with respect and not trying to deceive them, the government must abandon the ‘Internal market Guarantee’ and not seek to make the Independent Monitoring Panel an accessory to its deception. They must also rename the UK Internal Market System to convey the fact that its arrangements make provision for an alternative trade border mechanism rather than an internal market for goods. The people of the United Kingdom – whether living in England, Wales and Scotland, seeking to sell goods to Northern Ireland, or living in Northern Ireland, seeking to buy goods from GB – need treating with respect.
There is in all this some hope.
The thing that the UK Internal Market System and Internal Market Guarantee tell us, apart from the willingness of governments to try and mislead the public, is that they want to be able to say that the Irish Sea Border has been largely removed.
The good news is that they could tell people that the Irish Sea border had been removed entirely, and without the imposition of a hard border across the island of Ireland, if they adopted Mutual Enforcement. Mutual Enforcement was developed by the EU and as it marks the International Day of Democracy with their Brussels democracy conference from 18 – 19 September, they would do well to reflect on the implications for their own brand of having sought an Irish Sea border that has resulted in the partial disenfranchisement of 1.9 million UK citizens in Northern Ireland and in denying them unfettered access to the greater part of their home internal market.
The needs to disenfranchise, disinherit and deceive would be removed if the Government and the EU adopted Mutual Enforcement.
The Government Should Step Back from the Brink and Seek to Build-up Rather than Tear-down Trust in Politics
