PM and MP prone to acting supine over NI

Richard Poad is concerned that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is destroying the integrity of our democracy (Viewpoint, November 11).

I agree, but I am even more concerned about his casual attitude to the territorial integrity of our country.

Admittedly Northern Ireland only contributes about 2 per cent to our GDP, so perhaps he felt that its loss would be a reasonable sacrifice to get him that ‘fantastic’ free trade deal with the EU that he told us about in his special television broadcast last Christmas Eve (Viewpoint, December 31 2020, ‘Counting the costs of the PM’s concessions’).

Meanwhile, largely unremarked in the mass media, the Irish government has suddenly discovered that it is possible to check goods coming into the Republic from Northern Ireland without creating a ‘hard border’ and potentially provoking a resurgence of terrorism.

Putting the headline ‘Border checks to enforce air quality rules on solid fuel’ into

Google will bring up an article from last week, buried on the Times website, which explains that ‘from next year local authorities will enforce import bans on the smokiest such fuels’.

In other words the checks will be performed away from the land border, one of the ‘alternative arrangements’ previously rejected by the Irish government, with one Irish politician even saying ‘no matter where you locate check sites – they amount to a hard border.”

The UK government under both Theresa May and Boris Johnson supinely accepted that kind of nonsense from the Irish government, leading us inexorably into the present mess with the territorial integrity of our country under threat, so why did they approve that?

Dr D R COOPER Belmont Park Avenue

Maidenhead