The Protocol debacle could drag the UK back into the Single Market
If this Conservative government fails to act quickly, it risks not only Northern Irish peace unravelling, but the slow reversal of Brexit itself.
The Conservative government’s response to the ongoing battle over the Northern Ireland Protocol risks pushing Britain back inside the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market. The present combination of the UK’s lacklustre negotiating tactics and the EU’s intransigence will, if not changed, leave an open goal to any UK government that was inclined to tear the guts out of Brexit.
The now infamous Northern Ireland Protocol is a key part of the Withdrawal Agreement, which is itself one of the two treaties that govern Britain’s relationship with the EU. They make Britain a non-member state but one which is entangled in ways that other third nations are not. The NI Protocol is the most visible example of this difficulty. It creates frictions in the economic relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, and stirs up trouble in the province itself – and in two years, the UK has singularly failed to address these problems.
From the beginning, the government’s response has been poor. During attempts at negotiation on the Protocol, leaks about British threats to trigger Article 16 have regularly blanketed the media. These threats, it transpired, were idle, with no real intent behind them, allowing the EU to call our bluff while dissolving trust. In this context, the DUP’s recent move to block the formation of the Northern Ireland Assembly was savvy, as the UK Government now has to act on the Protocol if it is ever to get the Assembly back up and running and make good on its commitment to the Good Friday Agreement.
Yet still the Conservatives cannot agree on a course of action. Number 10 and the Treasury appear to believe that triggering Article 16 at a time of sky high inflation is short-sighted. As usual, however, other departments are pulling in a different direction, with Liz Truss seeming particularly in favour of tearing up the Protocol no matter what the economic cost. As the person who has to deal with the EU’s steadfast aversion to showing any flexibility, perhaps we can have sympathy. The UK has made concrete proposals, such as removing the burden of proof for goods to be treated as remaining within the UK unless there is their is a risk that those goods will enter the EU market. Britain also wants food products, which are subject to the most custom regulation, to be exempt from all tariffs if they remain in Northern Ireland.
The EU’s response has been to refuse to consider changes because, in its view, the Protocol cannot be renegotiated. There is a legitimate argument to be made that the UK side should not have signed up for something that would not work; however, the Protocol is, in theory, flexible. It has to be, as the Good Friday Agreement requires consent from both communities. The Protocol itself states that changes can be agreed if the provisions are not working for one party. If the unionist community in Northern Ireland rejects the current arrangements, which they evidently do, then they must change before the collapse of the Protocol leads to the collapse of the post-Brexit Anglo-EU agreements altogether.
The EU claims it cares about peace in Northern Ireland; however, it is in fact Brussels that is the main threat to the peace process. It has imposed excessive customs checks (which are entirely disproportionate to the amount of goods moving across the border) and made the paperwork for cross-Irish Sea trade as onerous as possible – especially for companies moving goods into Northern Ireland. It has also, as aforementioned, refused to show any flexibility on these matters at all. Whether this is due to its obligation to represent the interests of the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, or its desire to punish the UK for leaving, or is in fact a tactic to draw the UK as a whole back into the EU is unimportant. At the very least, it would seem likely that part of the reason the EU is so implacably against any change to the Protocol is that it hopes to eventually meet a UK government less friendly to Brexit. At that stage, both parties could 'solve' the problems created by the Protocol by bringing the UK back into the EU fold at some level.
If this Conservative government fails to act quickly, therefore, it risks not only the Good Friday Agreement and Northern Irish peace unravelling, but the slow reversal of Brexit itself.
