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Jonathan Buckley made the comments during a meeting of Stormont’s economy committee, where Lord Murphy was giving evidence on the post-Brexit trade arrangements. The former NI secretary, who was charged with reviewing the deal after unionists rejected it in the Assembly last year, said that there is undoubtedly a democratic deficit caused by the deal. Mr Buckley was one of a number of MLAs to question Lord Murphy on the current arrangements – however Sinn Fein did not, despite holding the economy ministry. The DUP MLA said: “Dual market access gives off the impression to people that it's equal market access. “And for many of the small and medium sized businesses who continue to have their supply chains destroyed, their markets decimated, there is no succour in dual market access for those businesses – which make up the vast majority of Northern Ireland business”. Lord Murphy said that during his review, larger businesses had told him there were advantages “they would very gladly exploit”. However, he said that the majority of businesses in NI are medium and smaller businesses, and for them, dual market access is “less significant than the internal market” between NI and GB. SDLP MLA Sinead McLaughlin – who supports the current arrangements – suggested the UK government should give extra money to Stormont to “maximise” the opportunities of dual market access. Lord Murphy said there “is a case for that”. Alliance MLA David Honeyford said he was triggered by some of Lord Murphy’s comments to question whether the UK government was framing the issues in the wrong way. He questioned “should we be reframing this” around economic “growth and opportunities” rather than than “the constitutional thing”. Lord Murphy said that if the whole of the United Kingdom had become part of the EU single market “none of this would have been necessary”.
