Frost warns UK-EU relationship doomed without agreement over Northern Ireland Protocol
Boris Johnson’s defacto Brexit minister has warned that UK-EU relations post-Brexit will not succeed unless the issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol are solved.
Lord David Frost said today that the future of Northern Ireland is “so fundamental to getting this relationship right”.
“The issues around the protocol are central to the tensions between us,” he said.
“I don’t think we will get onto a new positive footing unless we find a new solution to this problem, which Northern Ireland can work with, which the EU can work with and the UK can work with.”
Northern Ireland still follows the EU’s customs union and single market rules, unlike the rest of the UK, meaning there are checks on some goods crossing the Irish Sea.
The checks are designed to ensure that goods which do not meet certain specifications do not enter the EU’s single market through the backdoor.
Boris Johnson and Frost argue that the EU is being too stringent in its border checks regime and that it is harming the local economy and putting peace at risk.
Brussels argues that it is implementing the protocol to the letter of the law.
Frost said today at a Policy Exchange event that he expected the protocol would be applied more pragmatically by the EU while he was negotiating the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
“We did believe the very fact we were agreeing to a special set of arrangements in a delicate political situation that we expected them to be applied with pragmatism in the wider interest,” he said.
“I don’t think it’s a naïve [expectation]
“It is a pity that the EU is reverting to type on this, if that’s what’s happening.”
The so-called border in the Irish Sea that the protocol created has sparked anger from some sections of the Northern Irish community, with violent rioting earlier this year partly blamed on the post-Brexit arrangements.
It has also led to two Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leaders being ousted in the last two months.