Britain is right to step in as the EU drags its feet on a Northern Ireland concession
Northern Ireland was never going to be easy. From the genesis of talks about the border in 2017, through to the “backstop to the backstop” agreed by Theresa May, to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland, its evolution was complex and technical.
The Protocol effectively places Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market and customs union for goods. Customs declarations and regulatory requirements, like veterinary certification, apply to goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, while no additional formalities apply between NI and Ireland and the rest of the EU. The bloc has always insisted it was necessary to protect the integrity of the single market, while avoiding border controls that, it was claimed, would pose problems to the Good Friday Agreement, and to peace on the island of Ireland.
In practice, the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement have ground to a halt. Unionist parties (whose participation is essential for power sharing in their government) have resisted the application of barriers on trade with Great Britain and laws the people of Northern Ireland have no say on. The UK government has spent £500m on border infrastructure and support for traders, and that’s before the protocol is even fully implemented. There has been massive trade diversion as the costs of bringing goods from their usual suppliers in Great Britain has driven businesses to look elsewhere – something the protocol expressly sought to avoid, and provided safeguards against in the now famous Article 16.
But what about the opportunities for Northern Ireland from retaining seamless access to the single market? Detailed modelling from economists at the University of Strathclyde indicate that the costs of trade diversion are so significant that there appears to be no evidence that the Protocol allows Northern Ireland to enjoy “the best of both worlds”.
So the Good Friday Agreement is being undermined and businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland are suffering, as outlined in the Institute of Economic Affairs new report.
The EU has acknowledged there have been problems with the Protocol. But the proposals it published last October would make things worse: it will only countenance mitigations when the UK has fully implemented the parts of the protocol that have not yet come into effect. The limited improvements that it has put forward, such as only requiring a single certificate for whole loads of food, are conditional on grace periods coming to an end and, of course, the UK abiding by the bloc’s regulations in certain areas.
The approach supported by Liz Truss is a pragmatic and economically liberalising approach that would only apply checks to those goods actually destined for Ireland – and the single market. It would put heavy fines on any businesses that contravene these rules in order to protect the EU’s principles. In Northern Ireland, both EU and UK compliant goods would be accepted, avoiding a bizarre situation where products readily available in Scotland aren’t on shelves across the Irish sea.
Thus far, the EU has not produced a shred of evidence of UK goods leaking across the land border. The risk to the single market has been overinflated as a negotiating tool. The risk to stability in Northern Ireland has not.
Of course, a negotiated solution would be preferable, but we know from experience that the EU will not change its position just because we ask it to. Those who call on the British government to hold off on unilateral actions need to have an answer to what should be done if the EU maintains its current position. The bloc is seemingly happy to see the United Kingdom divided up by border controls that threaten peace and prosperity – the opposite outcome to the express intentions of the protocol. For the UK government not to act would be abdication of responsibility.