A looming trade war?
The Irish foreign minister, Simon Coveney, accused the UK of “deliberately forcing a breakdown” in negotiations over Northern Ireland. He was reacting to the threat made by UK Brexit Minister David Frost to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, which governs the region’s post-Brexit trading arrangements. The provision allows either side (the UK or the EU) to suspend parts of the deal and seek new agreements. If Britain triggered Article 16, warned Coveney, then the entire post-Brexit agreement between the UK and the EU could be “set aside”.
In order to avoid a hard land border on “the island of Ireland”, the Protocol had placed customs checks between mainland UK and Northern Ireland. But the resulting “sea border” has caused economic disruption and fury among unionists. There have been violent anti-Protocol rallies in the Belfast area in recent weeks; in the last fortnight, two buses have been hijacked and set on fire.
What the editorials said
The Government should “not be cowed by warnings of a trade war from Brussels”, said The Daily Telegraph. “The EU has consistently sought to frustrate demands to end the Protocol’s deleterious effects.” Invoking Article 16 may be the only way forward. And there’s nothing “illegal” or high-handed about doing so. Both sides can suspend the Protocol if it causes serious “economic, societal or environmental difficulties”, which it is clearly doing. Overzealous EU checks on goods from Britain to Northern Ireland have led to serious shortages. Now there are riots on the streets.
Going down the Article 16 route would be a “grave mistake”, said the FT. It applies to “unforeseen” consequences; most of the Protocol’s drawbacks being cited as pretext for triggering it were widely anticipated. The EU may have been overly legalistic in enforcing the Protocol at first, but it has now offered major compromises. Demanding a fundamental “rewrite” would be unfair and dishonest. It could upend the main Brexit treaty, and it “would torpedo the UK’s credibility as a reliable partner as it seeks trade deals across the world”.