Things are hotting up over the NI protocol. The EU have confirmed they are taking legal action over the government's decision to unilaterally add six months to the agreed grace period - the one they agreed in December was "not renewable." Johnson and Frost are personally trashing Britain's reputation for abiding by the terms of its treaties. We are becoming a rogue state not that far removed from Russia - resentful, argumentative, difficult and untrustworthy.
The issue was raised in the House of Lords, where Lord Frost said the UK will defend "vigorously" any legal action brought by Brussels and that the measures taken were "operational, technical and temporary." He claimed the EU commission had been informed before the decision was made public, but I assume it was just a few hours.
And following the briefing given in Washington by Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney and Maros Sefcovic yesterday, it is announced that we intend to send a low-level civil servant from the NI office to the US to "build relations with the administration of President Joe Biden". This looks like either a calculated snub or nobody senior like Frost wanted to go and defend the UK's actions or the Americans didn't want to have high level talks. Whichever it is does not look good. Biden's sympathy is with Ireland and the EU. Johnson has no friends in Washington.
I can't help but think the protocol, cobbled together under extreme time pressure as Johnson's 31 October deadline loomed in 2019 and never consulted on or accepted by nationalists, will be the source of near constant aggravation until we rejoin the single market or the EU itself.
Elsewhere, Peter Foster at the FT has an article and a long Twitter thread about new EU rules governing the import of composite foods (pizza, chocolate, crisps etc) that he says will "pile new red tape on U.K. food manufacturers" and I assume impact NI supermarkets too.
🚨🇪🇺🇬🇧🚛🍫🥧🍕🍪🚛🇪🇺🇬🇧🚨From April 21 the EU is introducing new rules on composite foods (pizza, chocolate, crisps etc) that are going to pile new red tape on U.K. food manufacturers/1— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) March 10, 2021
It's not clear to me when the rules were drawn up but I assume it was a long time ago. The EU usually allow a lot of time between legislation being discussed, agreed, and passed before implementation so I assume we had a say in it all.
Apparently, the new rules mean that so-called "shelf-stable" products that contain meat (a pepperoni pizza) or pasteurised milk (a choc bar or a curry sauce with yoghurt in it so Foster claims) will require a vet-stamped Export Health Certificate.
Companies are worried that there aren't enough vets and the new rules will just add cost. One snack company says, "We will need a vet on site for 10 hours per day, five days a week at a cost of £300,000 per annum. Multiply this across our sites where we export and we are looking at a potential cost running into the millions."
I ask myself why a company like, say Nestle for example or Cadburys (Mondelez), would produce chocolate products in the UK for export to the EU when they have factories in Europe which don't need all the extra costs and paperwork? Hard to see why they would, or why anybody producing composite foods that can be made inside the single market would ever contemplate doing it outside.
Some might call this protectionist but the problem for post Brexit UK is that the EU can afford to be protectionist, we can't. In trade, size matters and the strong do what they like.
