According to a report, the cross community executive is one of four northern Ireland executive parties and the only one to veto extentions to the covid lockdown. The veto mechanism, said to have been engineered in the 2006 St Andrew’s agreement means only one veto is necessary to stop a motion and isn’t restricted to inter-community disputes but can be used elsewhere. According to the report, changes reinforcing the mechanism were rushed through by the dup and sinn fein in July. Dublin have questioned sinn fein’s directive.
Apart from shared objections to covid restrictions, both the dup and sinn fein reportedly wrote a letter to the european commission asking for a mitigation of paperwork for food at ports. The answer was no. The house of lords has rejected clauses in the so called internal markets bill which acknowledge eu border protocol.