The UK plans to reduce trade friction on goods flowing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a move which fell short of an overhaul of Brexit rules but is still expected to persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to end its boycott of the region’s devolved government.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s government said it will replace the so-called “green lane” for goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland – part of the effective trade border in the Irish Sea created by the post-Brexit settlement agreed with the European Union – with a new “UK internal market system” that will not require checks. It also plans legislation to guarantee “unfettered access” for Northern Irish goods to the UK internal market.

The measures are part of a package, which includes a $4.2 billion funding boost, agreed with the DUP to end its boycott of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government. Party leader Jeffrey Donaldson has been talking up the concessions and promised to end the protest once the UK published the plan.

However, in a sign of the limited scope and impact of the proposed changes, the UK government said they didn’t need any sign-off from the EU and the bloc made no public objection or protest. “I do not anticipate any particular difficulties in respect of the EU side,” Ireland’s deputy premier Micheal Martin told reporters during a visit to Belfast on Wednesday.

“This is a lot more about presentation than substantive change, on a first reading,” said Simon Usherwood, professor of politics and international studies at the Open University, adding that he’s surprised the DUP is accepting the plan because it doesn’t alter the basics of the post-Brexit settlement. “But if it gets them out of the hole they dug themselves into, and – more importantly – it restores power-sharing, then that has to be a positive.”

Northern Ireland was one of the trickiest issues in divorce talks between Britain and the EU, which culminated in the region retaining a hybrid status inside the EU’s single market for goods and having to impose customs checks on some goods entering the province from the rest of the UK.

Key features of the Brexit settlement are unaffected by the new plan, which will maintain checks on goods intended for Ireland in the EU’s single market.

The challenge for the DUP’s Donaldson is to take his party with him over the coming days when the devolved assembly at Stormont is expected to be re-formed. In a sign that he still has work to do, DUP MPs lined up on Wednesday to criticize the proposals when presented to Parliament by the UK’s Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris.

Sammy Wilson, who has opposed any compromise on the Brexit rules, said the ongoing possibility of regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK was the result of a “spineless, weak-kneed Brexit-betraying government refusing to take on the EU and its interference in Northern Ireland.”

“When the Northern Ireland assembly sits, ministers and assembly members will be expected by law to adhere to and implement laws which are made in Brussels, which they had no say over and no ability to amend, and no ability to stop,” he said.

Another DUP MP, Carla Lockhart, said “there remains work to do,” while Paul Girvan said, “we very much feel like we’re being bounced on a timetable.”

The opposition to Donaldson’s deal is not expected to prevent the restoration of power-sharing after the DUP leader said the party’s senior leadership agreed to end the boycott during five hours of talks that ended with a breakthrough in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

The risk for Donaldson is likely to be more in the long-term if he can’t keep the bulk of his party side once the assembly and Northern Ireland executive are up and running, and his deal with the UK is tested.

The DUP withdrew from the power-sharing government in February 2022, arguing Northern Ireland’s hybrid status in the Brexit deal signed by ex-premier Boris Johnson had undermined its place in the UK. Heaton-Harris called on the party to end the boycott because of the new proposals.

“With this package, it’s now time for elected representatives in Northern Ireland to come together to end the two years of impasse,” Heaton-Harris said in Parliament. “I trust we will have the conditions to move onward to see ministers back in post in Stormont swiftly.”

The UK House of Commons will debate and vote on the proposals on Thursday, Sunak’s spokesman Max Blain told reporters in London. Labour’s spokesman Hilary Benn confirmed his party would back the government at the vote.

“Stability is everything, especially to the people of Northern Ireland after all they have been through,” Benn said.

Ending the political impasse would be a significant moment in the history of Northern Ireland, which will get its first nationalist First Minister in Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill.

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