​Former Home Secretary Suella Braverman: the Windsor Framework is not working

She was speaking after a DUP urgent question on a Belfast High Court ruling disapplying parts of the illegal migration act in Northern Ireland.

The government came in for criticism and tough questions from across the House of Commons – as minister Tom Pursglove maintained that the court had made the wrong decision and it would appeal.

In a post on social media platform X, Mrs Braverman said: “Despite assurances to the contrary made to me at the time, it is now clear that The Windsor Framework is not working. It is undermining UK sovereignty and Northern Ireland’s place within our nation. And it is now undermining our ability to control our borders”.

Speaking in parliament, the former home secretary said “the judge found that section 7a of the Withdrawal Agreement Act, as amended by the Windsor Framework, must be read to mean that Northern Ireland is effectively to be treated as part of the European Union.

“I believed the assurances made to me at the time, but Mr Speaker isn’t it now patently clear that the Windsor Framework has operated in a way as to undermine our sovereignty, to undermine Northern Ireland’s place within the United Kingdom – and I’m afraid has fundamentally filed upon its first contact with reality”.

DUP MP Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) said “we have another hole in the Government’s immigration policy, a national immigration policy now dictated by the EU. Northern Ireland will become a backdoor into the United Kingdom and it’ll hasten the day when we will have people controls between Northern Ireland and GB as well as goods controls.“Does the minister recognise that unless we remove the source of this – namely the commitments in the Withdrawal Agreement – this will continue?”Mr Purslgove replied: “I don’t think there’s any question whatsoever of any merit in the suggestion that the UK would hand NI over to the EU”.