For those who have followed the interminable Brexit process, there was a wearisome inevitability about Foreign Secretary Liz Truss’s announcement on Tuesday that the UK government intends to table domestic law to allow to override bits of the protocol.
This is part of a pattern. Boris Johnson and his ministers agree something with the EU, then realise they made a mistake and threaten to unravel it unless they secure concessions.
Lest we forget, it was a deal on the protocol that allowed Johnson to call and win an election based on his ‘oven ready’ Brexit deal in December 2019.
The Northern Ireland protocol is a bad deal for the UK and Northern Ireland. But it was chosen by Boris Johnson and his advisor, and then Brexit Minister David Frost. It carves out Northern Ireland, in trading terms, from the rest of the UK, by effectively creating a customs border in the Irish Sea which, incidentally, Johnson promised unionists would not happen. Johnson and Frost knew this when they agreed on it. It should have been no surprise when the EU imposed customs checks on goods travelling to Northern Ireland as the bloc did for all goods leaving the UK for the EU single market.
It is not unfair to suppose that Johnson, Frost and co reasoned that the only important bit was for Brexit to be done. Once out of the bloc, they could simply reopen the protocol or do away with the bits they did not like.
The trouble is that such transparent dishonesty creates mistrust. During the House of Commons debate that followed Truss’s announcement, a series of MPs from Johnson’s Conservative party expressed their concerns about the UK blithely breaching its international commitments.
It was “extraordinary that a Conservative government needs reminding” about the need to uphold the rule of law, remarked Simon Hoare, the Conservative chair of the Northern Ireland affairs committee.
Yet as cynical and disingenuous as Johnson and his ministers have been, the protocol does have two signatories. It is also hard for the Commission to justify a regime that requires sandwiches being transported from Britain to supermarkets in Northern Ireland to be subject to the same bureaucratic processes as if they were going to Nice. The European Commission drove a hard bargain during the Brexit process, one of the results of which was the protocol. The difficulties businesses face, and the anger among unionists should surprise no one.
UK ministers and officials are at pains to stress that they want to negotiate a solution with the EU rather than use the nuclear option of acting unilaterally. In truth, the UK wishlist is actually not that revolutionary. The movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland should be no different from the rest of UK, and EU officials recognise that there is a difference between goods going to Northern Ireland and those going to Ireland and the EU. The UK VAT regime should be able to apply to Northern Ireland.
Besides, the political instability in the unionist community in Northern Ireland cannot be ignored or wished away. It is a consequence of Johnson’s dishonesty and the terms of the protocol, and the Commission does bear some responsibility for the latter.
The protocol can be made to work, but it requires political will. The question is whether the EU can summon the will to deal with a UK government whose leader and ministers habitually refuse to take responsibility for their actions.
Source: euractiv.com
