In February 2021 after Brexit had been formally consummated on 31 December 2020, Foster raised a ruckus over the red line down the Irish Sea. In a "Daily Telegraph" op-ed she maintained that the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) had "fundamental flaws" and suggested, in light of the COVID vaccine dispute, that in order to "protect the UK internal market by all legislative means necessary including triggering Article 16, Boris Johnson must now back up those words with tangible actions that protect the integrity of the whole of the United Kingdom."