UK ready to scrap NI Protocol’s customs laws

BRITAIN is prepared to trigger Article 16 and change laws to ditch customs checks required by the Northern Ireland Protocol before Christmas, The Daily Telegraph has learned.

In a move designed to show the EU that the UK is serious about altering the current trade arrangements, ministers are already working on legal changes to customs regulations.

A decision from the UK on whether to use Article 16 will be taken at the end of November. The move is widely expected both in Brussels and London and would lead to a month of formal talks. But this newspaper understands that the UK plans to simultaneously lay secondary legislation before Parliament to slash customs checks and have the laws changed before Christmas.

The “technical” changes would let businesses know what the new arrangements for goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland would be, according to those familiar with the plan. It would also send a signal to Brussels that the UK was ready to unilaterally scale back customs checks even if no agreement was reached over new terms of trade.

“The state of play is we are not seeing much moving forward in negotiations,” said a Whitehall source close to the talks. “We cannot go on like it is. It is not sustainable. There are real-world problems on the ground.”

There are also fresh warnings that the EU will consider counter-measures if the UK triggers Article 16 in an effort to end frictions on trade across the Irish Sea.

A senior EU diplomat told The Telegraph: “EU capitals like Berlin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Paris would expect a robust response. We are ready for peace but prepared for war.”

The current stand-off centres on the Northern Ireland Protocol, a deal struck in October 2019 by Boris Johnson during Brexit talks and which came into force in

January 2021. It agrees that customs checks between Ireland, which is inside the EU, and Northern Ireland, which is now outside the EU, will not happen at the land border between the countries.

Instead goods travelling from the mainland UK into Northern Ireland will face checks, meaning there is an effective customs border down the Irish Sea.

The Johnson administration believes the trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland are undercutting the integrity of the UK, while Brussels is opposing major changes to the deal.