‘Breaking the glass in case of emergency’
THE Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, was reported to have said about the new Internal Market Bill, that it was “breaking the glass in case of emergency provisions”. This was on the basis that these provisions will only be used in the event a free trade deal is not successfully negotiated with the EU, in order to preserve the UK’s position on the Good Friday Agreement. This is something that the UK will have to convince the Americans of if the UK is to secure their free trade deal with the USA, as the Americans, in their view being the architects of the Good Friday Agreement, want it preserved.
There has been much controversy over the new Bill and how the UK’s reputation will be tarnished. You would have to go back as far as the 19th century for the last occasion the UK reneged on an international treaty. However, in this modern world where agreements, understandings and alliances are always shifting, will this really be the case? The Withdrawal Agreement with the EU required negotiation to be conducted in good faith and as such, it could be argued that both parties are in breach of this principle whether through the new legislation or the EU not offering the UK a similar agreement to Canada. So, will the Northern Ireland Protocol be redundant before it comes into effect in January 2021? The view Boris Johnson is taking is that the Northern Ireland Protocol was signed in haste and contained a number of loose ends, which were yet to be tidied up. The Internal Markets Bill is aimed to be one of those tidying up exercises.
It is not unreasonable for the UK, as a sovereign state, to insist that it, and not the EU, has the final say on UK internal matters, that is why the Internal Markets Bill expressly states, “notwithstanding any relevant international law or domestic legislation.” Some people will see this as a negotiating tactic though it could easily be just background noise as the Bill only has effect if no agreement is reached between the UK and the EU. It is not unreasonable to assume that in the event that no agreement is reached between the UK and the EU, similar legislation would be passed at a later date in any event.
The posturing by all five former living Prime Ministers on the UK’s reputational damage, does not detract from the principle that protection of the cohesion of the UK must be key. Otherwise, there is a risk of fragmentation for Northern Ireland (and not just Scotland) from the union and this should surely not be the unintended consequence of Brexit. Are state aid and fishing rights ‘the final straws which broke the camel’s back’ as there is no doubt these issues formed part of the Brexit campaign, when it was argued that the UK should have control of all of its laws, money and borders, but what was never envisaged was that Northern Ireland would be the EU’s border enforcement officer between the rest of Great Britain and the EU.
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