SIR Jeffrey Donaldson has appointed two of his predecessors to an eight-member group that will consult on the Windsor Framework.
A week after the EU and UK announced a breakthrough in the deadlock around the Northern Ireland Protocol, the DUP leader said he was establishing a panel to canvass opinion on the revised post-Brexit trade arrangements.
The group will include former first minister turned GB News presenter Baroness Arlene Foster, her Stormont predecessor Peter Robinson, DUP MP Carla Lockhart, and Lord Peter Weir, who lost his North Down assembly seat last May.
They will be joined by DUP MLAs Deborah Erskine and Brian Kingston, Co Down solicitor John McBurney, and Co Antrim businessman Ross Reed, who in 2018 styled himself a "firm remainer", saying many unionists who had voted for Brexit "never fully understood why they did it".
Sir Jeffrey described the group, which will report to the DUP leader at the end of this month, as acting "independently" and having a mix of "political, legal and business experience".
He said the panel consisted of DUP members, as well as "independent thinkers who have standing within the broader community".
"They will want to engage with a broad section of the unionist and loyalist community, the business sector, civic society and others who want to see Northern Ireland prosper within the union," he said.
He said the panel would be "listening and taking views on the framework", in parallel with his party's continuing engagement with the British government.
The DUP leader said the Windsor Framework, unveiled last week by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, as representing "significant progress" but said "key issues of concern" remained.
"There can be no disguising the fact that in some sectors of our economy EU law remains applicable in Northern Ireland," he said.
The Lagan Valley MP said there had been widespread recognition, even among the protocol's "early cheerleaders" that the arrangements that were passed by Westminster in January 2020 "could not have been made to work".
He said the protocol had "upset the delicate political balance in Northern Ireland and was not supported by the unionist community".
"Our judgement and our principled position in opposing the protocol in parliament and at Stormont has been vindicated," Sir Jeffrey said.
"Undoubtedly it is now recognised that the protocol does not work – when others said there would be no re-negotiation and no change our determination has proved what can be achieved."
Sir Jeffrey said his party was engaged in a "detailed study of what has been published", as well as examining the detail of associated legal texts.
"Clearly further legal text remains to be published to give effect to some of the changes already secured," he said.
"We have already commenced discussions with the UK government on a range of issues where we require further clarity and where we believe more work will be needed."
The DUP leader's statement announcing the group's formation concluded with: "History teaches us that it is always better to get the right outcome for Northern Ireland."
Sir Jeffrey's announcement came after British government officials briefed Stormont's main parties on details of the framework. The discussions are understood to have focused on the so-called Stormont Brake and plans to give unionists assurances about the north's constitutional status.
:: The consultation group can be contacted at consultation@dup.org.uk
