According to reports, the dup are setting up a nine person panel comprising of members with political, legal and business experience to gauge opinion on the new deal for post Brexit trading arrangements known as the Windsor framework. Reportedly, the group which will have a focused consultation will collect and combine information and feed it into government discussions. According to reports, the group is to comprise of sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the right honourable Peter Robinson, baroness Foster, lord Weir, Ross Reid obe, John McBurney and unionist party politicians Carla Lockhart, Brian Kingston and Deborah Erkskine.
Reportedly, lord Weir was appointed as a queen’s council in 2010 and a judge of the supreme courts in 2020. Ross Reid was a former member of the progressive conservative party of Canada and has worked in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzogovina, Kosovo and Ukraine. Northern Ireland solicitor John McBurney is known to have defended the findings of the Smithwick report as nuanced and fair.