The death of Prince Phillip has paused the unrest in Northern Ireland but it's far from resolved. The Guardian claim talks have been ongoing for a couple of weeks at a technical level between officials to try and find some easements to allow trade to flow better. Personally I'm not convinced that is the answer but it might help a bit. The paper says the two sides are edging closer to a new deal. However, Mujtaba Rahman, the former Treasury and EU official, cautions against too much optimism.
In a Twitter thread he has a far more downbeat assessment coming from the EU.
Lots of media reports that UK & EU are edging closer towards a deal on the Protocol. I'm very sceptical. The gaps between the two remain substantive & substantial; indeed the press reports have been described to me as “surprising“. Short thread 1/
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) April 12, 2021
His contacts say the two sides are far apart on food (SPS) checks where there has been no 'meeting of minds' and there are also another 20 what he calls substantial issues in addition to that. The EU side say all the issues have been discussed endlessly before in any case and the outcome was the protocol that they are now looking for solutions to. Daft isn't it? They are just going round the same circles again and again.
He says it is going to take some political efforts in addition to technical ones but there is no trust and the EU are not convinced the UK government ever intends to implement the NI protocol. Don't forget the EU parliament has not ratified the TCA yet and this is supposed to happen at the end of this month. MEPs are bound to wonder if it's worth ratifying a deal when the other side can't or won't implement the previous deal. International relations can't work like that surely?
However, the most interesting part of Rahmans thread is this:
Violence in NI is putting pressure on both sides to adopt a more conciliatory tone. Esp @BorisJohnson who many tell me is in denial about role his Brexit deal is playing in sparking violence in NI. But the need to be seen to be constructive is v diff than actually closing gaps 6/
— Mujtaba Rahman (@Mij_Europe) April 12, 2021
Apparently Boris Johnson is in denial about the impact the protocol is having on the ground in Belfast. He does not believe the two things are connected, despite dozens of newspaper report and plenty of interviews with politicians pointing to the fact that it is the biggest single reason for the rioting seen over the last couple of weeks.
I don't know why this should come as a surprise to me. The PM lives in a fantasy world where only good things happen and everything else is denied. No progress can be made until he confronts the problem head on and there is no sign of that at all so far.
I had a quick look yesterday at what it was that caused Harold Wilson to send in troops to Northern Ireland in 1969 in a "limited operation" to restore law and order after three days and two nights of violence in the mainly-Catholic Bogside area of Londonderry. Trouble had also broken out in Belfast and other towns across Northern Ireland. That "limited operation" went on for 30 years and cost several thousand lives as we all know.
I don't think he realises how quickly the PSNI could be overwhelmed and what options he might be faced with unless there is progress. I think aligning food standards is a small concession that will help but certainly isn't the whole answer, yet the government is stubbornly resisting it on ideological grounds.
The problem for Johnson, Frost and the other Brexiteers is that it is a small step on a slippery slope back to membership of the single market and they don't want to take it. But very soon they will be forced to begin the rolling back of the hard Brexit that is at the heart of all our present problems.
