Living next to unreliable neighbours can require a blend of calm and patience
EUROPEAN Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, after a G7 meeting last year, somewhat patronisingly, said of the Brexit Agreement that ‘it was written in English so that they could understand it’.
This statement elicited much criticism in the UK, especially from hardline Tories. But, clearly, she was venting her frustration at the continuing attempts by the Boris Johnson government to get out of its commitments under that deal.
Given recent events, maybe President von der Leyen was not far off the mark.
The Tory government, last week, published a bill designed to override the Protocol included in the Brexit deal.
In a justification for bringing forward this bill, it published a redacted legal advice in which it invoked the so-called ‘doctrine of necessity’ to renege on its Brexit treaty obligations.
The advice stated that it could do this out of necessity because, it alleges, the implementation of the Protocol was putting a strain on the North’s institutions and socio-political conditions.
UK ministers bizarrely maintained in their interviews that they were doing this in order to ‘protect the Good Friday Agreement’! Very few others agree with that statement.
Admission
The legal statement issued by the Johnson government makes an incredible admission. It stated that when the UK decided to leave the EU ‘the peril that has emerged was not inherent in the Protocol’s provisions’.
So, despite all its history and wealth of experience, the UK now admits that it signed up to an international agreement, painstakingly negotiated, not realising what might happen. A little bit like how it decided to leave the EU, without giving a thought for how that might impact on the island of Ireland.
The EU Commissioners are apoplectic. The Commission’s Vice President, Maros Sefcovic bluntly stated the the UK move ‘is illegal’. The Commission has directed that legal proceedings be taken against the UK for this breach.
But, this move by the Johnson government on the Irish Protocol is not the only current attempt by it to squirm out of it’s international obligations. On the issue of its attempted policy to subcontract migrants to Rwanda, senior ministers are darkly suggesting that they might ignore future rulings from the European Court of Human Rights, after that Court blocked the inaugural Rwandan migrant flight. Government sources are even querying if one of the Judges involved in the decision to block the Rwandan flight was a Vladimir Putin appointee.
Indeed, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, incurred the wrath of senior members of the British legal profession when she told MPs that the ‘usual suspects’ had set out to ‘thwart‘ her plans. Perhaps she was referring to the 25 bishops who branded the migration plan as immoral and shameful. Or even Prince Charles who is reported to be ‘very disappointed’ by the UK government action – apparently referring to the proposal to dump migrants on Rwanda as ‘appalling’.
On the possibility of opting out of ECHR decisions, ‘We are keeping all our options open’ says Downing Street. No doubt, if they do, they will invoke the same ‘doctrine of necessity’ to try to extricate themselves from this international obligation. The dislike for anything to do with Europe in some sections of the British government is such that they believe, incorrectly, that the ECHR is yet another European Union institution. Britain, in fact, was the first signatory to the Convention under which the Court was established, long before the EU came into existence. Indeed, Boris Johnson’s own grandfather, James Fawcett, was a President of the Court.
But, the backsliding on international commitments by Boris Johnson and his government doesn’t stop there. Last week, their second ethics adviser in succession resigned because he couldn’t take any more. Lord Geidt, a former private secretary to the Queen, who said he previously considered resigning over Johnson’s PartyGate, threw in the towel because he said that Johnson was considering measures which risk a ‘deliberate and purposeful breach’ of the ministerial code of ethics.
This related to Johnson’s effort to breach trade obligations under the World Trade Organisation to which it had signed up. Lord Geidt said that such a move would make ‘a mockery’ of the code ‘to suit a political end’! Sounds familiar? Yet another attempt to renege on an international agreement it entered into.
Is it any wonder Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, last week, warned potential trading partners about doing business with the UK? He said that actions such as those mentioned above are not those ‘of a trustworthy government’. He questioned ‘is this really a country that you can take seriously?’
We, here in the Republic, are well forewarned about how we need to be on our guard when dealing with this current British government. While I have always felt that the broader British public are, by their nature, a very fair people, sadly, we know just how perfidious some British governments, historically, have been towards Ireland. And, this one is definitely in that category.
Don’t take my word for it. Just ask the DUP. They are very much of the view that the British government decision to publish the NI Protocol bill last week is merely a tactic to bolster their weak negotiating position with the EU. That the Johnson government doesn’t really intend to bring it to fruition.
Because of this suspicion, the DUP have so far refused to allow the Assembly and Executive to be reconvened. British government sources were in overdrive telling anyone who would listen that the progress of the bill would be sequenced in such a way so as to force the DUP to reactive the NI institutions. And, if that were to happen, Johnson and Co could declare ‘we told you so’!
Impasse
One way or another, this impasse between the EU and the UK will have to be solved. And that will be by hard negotiations. Over the past few weeks, I’ve detected a shift in the position of some leading commentators and figures who previously castigated the Johnson government for the meandering stance it has adopted since the Brexit vote.
Many of them, including former PM Tony Blair, have called on the EU to make further concessions. To me, that is a signal to the EU to move a little more in its position. Chief EU negotiator, Maros Sefcovic, was relatively restrained in his comments last week. He debunked some of the exaggerated claims made by British government sources, while, at the same time, holding out an olive branch to Johnson and Co.
While we should be rightly annoyed by the latest move by Johnson and his government, we should not take our eye off the real prize, that is, the least damaging post Brexit landscape for us on the island of Ireland.
That requires all leading figures on both sides to dumb down on the rhetoric. And to redouble their negotiation efforts to lessen the acknowledged adverse effects of the Protocol.
That way the British NI Protocol bill might never see the light of day, as a completed piece of legislation.