Brussels’ concessions are nowhere near enough to avoid instability in Northern Ireland
It isn’t enough, not by a long shot. The EU finally shifted its stance on Northern Ireland this week, but despite all the grand talk, we are miles from a deal. Instead, the Northern Ireland issue is set to poison relations for years to come.
On the surface, post-brexit talks made substantial progress this week. For those who haven’t been following the tug o’ war, here’s a recap.
Ever since Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal came into effect almost two years ago, Northern Ireland has been stuck in a red tape nightmare. Although the PM released most of the UK from Brussels’ orbit, he left Northern Ireland behind. The Northern Ireland Protocol he signed required the construction of a border down the Irish Sea, which meant thousands upon thousands of customs declarations, health checks and regulatory authorisations were introduced where before there had been none.
The situation has been just about bearable up to now because the UK has effectively suspended many provisions of the protocol, while Covid and the global supply chain mess are masking its full effects. But that isn’t sustainable. The EU is impatient, the UK frustrated and Northern Irish Unionists are anxious. The most concrete problems are the bureaucratic barriers cutting off one part of the UK market from the rest. By and large, goods can leave Northern Ireland for Great Britain unimpeded. But try to go the other way and you’re in trouble. Unsurprisingly, given that it’s part of our country, Northern Ireland buys more stuff from Great Britain than from anywhere else. In particular, it buys in large amounts of food, plants, medicines and manufacturing components and its citizens receive packages from friends and relatives across the Irish Sea.
All of this activity is now embroiled in the logjam of new border checks. The extent of these new checks is disputed. The UK and Northern Irish leaders complain that they amount to filling out a whole pile of forms for a single sandwich. The EU claims that it’s just one set of forms for a box of sandwiches. Either way, both sides now admit that there are just too many damn forms.
The proposals tabled by the EU this week promise to cut down on the forms. Instead of one declaration per box of sandwiches, companies that meet certain criteria may now be allowed to cover a whole van full of sandwiches with the same paperwork (though the details of this change are ominously unspecified). This is the sort of arrangement Brussels insisted was absolutely impossible a couple of years ago. Today, however, it suits the EU to present this shift as nothing fundamental – ’tis but a refinement of the way we implement the protocol! There will, it insists, be no actual rewriting of the protocol.
Here, we come to the intractable problem. The UK, under Lord Frost’s leadership, has made a series of demands that go much further than the EU’S concessions. Most controversially, London has demanded the removal of the European Court of Justice from its role in arbitrating the protocol. The EU views these demands as being born of an ideological obsession with the ECJ and a desire to wriggle out of a treaty London only just signed. Many Brexiteers are disgusted by their own treaty, which they promoted fulsomely to British voters despite really viewing it as a document signed under duress.
We can argue until the end of civilisation over the Conservative Party’s political failures since 2016 and how we got into this almighty mess. But that swerves the issue.
The UK’S main problem is that the protocol has destabilised Northern Ireland. So far, the fissures are small, but if nothing changes, they will expand. In February this year, Northern Irish police warned of rising tensions and border checks were temporarily suspended. In April, extremist loyalist forces were suspected to be behind rioting that injured 90 police officers. But this isn’t just about violent extremists. Moderate Unionists have been absolutely clear: the status quo is not acceptable.
Take, for example, the view of Doug Beattie, leader of the moderate Ulster Unionist Party. The UUP, which campaigned against Brexit, recently overtook the more hard-line DUP in polls and could become the largest party in Stormont elections next year. Mr Beattie says the prospect of permanent border posts policing the Irish Sea is “offensive” and “never going to work”. The EU’S claim that the protocol protects the Good Friday Agreement, he adds, “is just not true”.
Brussels is hoping that if it agrees to reduce the administrative burden of the protocol, businesses will stop complaining and other concerns will melt away. But that isn’t going to wash. Unionists aren’t just worried about paperwork. They are affronted by the idea that a set of entirely foreign institutions can now decide what medicines and foods are available, make laws and impose taxes that profoundly affect life in Northern Ireland without so much as a phone call to Belfast. The EU’S response to these concerns in its concessions this week was frankly ludicrous. It stated that it would set up a website so that the Northern Irish could read about the new laws Brussels plans to impose.
Let’s not forget that Irish politicians pop up every so often talking about the reunification of Ireland. Leo Varadkar, now Ireland’s deputy prime minister, declared this year that a united Ireland “can happen in my lifetime”. Irish senator Mark Daly has spent the past few years touting around his own 1,200-page plan for reunification.
Even worse, the protocol has an inbuilt instability mechanism guaranteed to stir up uncertainty on a regular schedule: every four years, Northern Ireland is to vote on whether to keep half of its provisions. The vote is to be won by simple majority, upending the Belfast Agreement’s principle of cross-community consent and, if the protocol is rejected, it’s anyone’s guess what happens next. Unionists are not making unreasonable demands. They have put forwards practical suggestions that involve minimal risk to the EU’S single market, but which do require some fundamental changes, like some sort of involvement for Belfast in the EU legislative process and limited recognition of British product standards.
The EU’S reaction to these ideas is to declare it’s the UK’S problem. “This is all because of Brexit!” is the line we keep hearing. Yes, it is. So what? Unless you believe the EU project is above quaint notions like consent, then you must admit that Brexit was a legitimate democratic result. It is therefore incumbent upon everyone to manage its consequences in a way that avoids destabilising a formerly violent region and miring Eu-british relations in legal challenges and trade wars for years to come. Eventually, that is going to have to involve taking unionists’ concerns seriously, rather than putting them all down to Tory neurosis.
The EU cannot keep blaming the obvious failures of the Northern Irish Protocol on some imagined Tory neurosis