Sunday 7 February 2021

More Irish sea border problems are bubbling up

The Irish border issue is bubbling up dangerously. I always believed it had the potential to be a rancorous sore in UK EU relations for years but I didn't think the problems would appear as seriously and as quickly as they have. The Withdrawal Agreement was a last ditch solution cobbled together by two sides who both had a lot to lose over an issue for which there was no solution except the one Boris Johnson had personally urged the British people to reject, ie, the status quo.

It is not helped by political parties failing to be honest about what the NI protocol means. The DUP, who perhaps more than anyone are responsible for it, are calling for the protocol to be dumped and some senior Tory Brexiteers are coming close to the same thing.  Of all the parties, the DUP were closest to the problem and should have known better, but still supported Brexit for reasons that are hard to fathom.

Now Vernon Bogdanor, Professor of constitutional law at King's College London has entered the fray with an explosive article in The Telegraph: There is a solution to the Irish border problem. It's hard to understand what he is trying to do except promote his own re-issued book.

I used to respect him but his 'solution' is "a border on the island of Ireland" 

He says:

"The issue should not be decided on that basis, but on the basis of which solution is fairest to the citizens of Northern Ireland, who are British taxpayers now deprived of their equal citizenship. That fundamental consideration points to a border on the island of Ireland, though checks need not actually take place on the border. It would be less onerous to administer than checks in the Irish Sea since Northern Ireland’s trade with Great Britain is so much greater than its trade with Ireland."

Apart from appearing to resurrect the unicorn-like 'alternative arrangements'  - border formalities which take place away from the border - it ignores the problem that the land border has hundreds of crossing points along its 310 mile length. The sea border only has five or six. Trade between GB and NI maybe far greater than within the island, but it's much easier to check at a few points.

Bogdanor claims the NI protocol arguably "breach[es] the 1800 Act of Union which provides for Northern Ireland “the same privileges” and “encouragements” in trade as the rest of the UK."  But as several people have pointed out the 'breach' - if there is one - was voted through by parliament and often later law supersedes earlier ones.

He also ignores the fact that a majority in NI voted to remain in the EU. In that way, keeping Northern Ireland in the EU customs union and single market with the sea border as prescribed by the NI protocol is closer to being democratically representative than a hard land border. 

Several people have also pointed to factual errors. Sam Lowe, a trade expert tweeted that goods from GB to NI are only subject to tariffs if they're deemed to be at risk of being shipped south to the Republic. 

For a man of Bogdanor's stature to write such a piece is really not good. 

The Telegraph also publishes an article by Suella Braverman, our AG who also should know better, claiming that: Boris Johnson will not let the EU 'push us around' over Northern Ireland.

This looks faintly ridiculous since this is clearly the opposite of what's happened so far. The WA, the deal Johnson hailed as an 'oven ready' deal is now being attacked by all Brexit supporting parties as a disaster. The only people who seem happy are the EU. The same thing has happened with the TCA, with Michael Gove now 'demanding' the EU grant an extension, something he was resisting when the EU proposed it last year. 

Again, the EU seem happy with the deal while Brexiteers are in denial about its impact and are now shouting from the rooftops how awful it is. Who has pushed who around?

Braverman, our Attorney General says:

"Boris stood up to the EU last year and we got a good deal. I am really confident we are not going to let the EU push Northern Ireland around. We will do whatever it takes to ensure that we get a good settlement for Northern Ireland, and a good settlement for the Union."

Braverman told The Telegraph she backed Mr Johnson after he threatened last week to invoke Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, a move which could impose a hard border on the island of Ireland - unless the EU negotiated.

She added "The Prime Minister has made it really clear that we're going to do everything that we can, whether that's legislatively, or indeed if it comes to it, invoking Article 16... to ensure that there's no barrier in the Irish Sea."

This is taking gaslighting to a whole new level. Gove is begging for a two year extension to the grace period before the deal she describes as being 'good' kicks in because of the chaos it has created, while talking about ensuring there's no barrier in the Irish sea - something which has been explicit since October 2019 when the WA was settled between Johnson and Varadkar.

You couldn't make it up.

And let us be absolutely clear where the blame for the mess lies. The government were told of the risks by civil servants in an impact assessment back in 2019:

Finally. have a look at this video with Johnson back in December 2019 claiming everybody else was wrong and he was right when it came to checks at the Irish sea border:

What a disastrously useless person he is.

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