We are clearly persona non grata in Europe now. At the Eurovision Song Contest last night we got no points at all. No jury and no public votes were cast at all for the UK. We are at rock bottom, the only country to finish with a big fat zero. It was like watching that awkward bloke at the party who doesn’t drink and nobody talks to - because he’s a bit odd - standing alone and shunned in the garage. Was it a surprise? No, not really. This is being played out in millions of companies and households in the EU27. You don’t want to be a part of our project? Suit yourself, we’ll get on with our own lives and leave you to it.
Diplomatically however, it’s quite a different matter. Although I’m sure the Commission just wants to wash its hands of us, they can’t and a big row is developing over the NI protocol. It is like watching the two sides limber up for an arm wrestling match between Mike Tyson and The Clitheroe Kid. It is not going to end well - like Eurovision.
Tony Connelly, RTE's Europe editor, a man I follow avidly because he writes good sense and is well informed about the inner thinking of the EU, had a long article yesterday which is well worth reading: Head-on collision: Hardening British rhetoric and the NI Protocol
Before looking at what he has to say, I just want to point out some unpleasant truths about the Withdrawal Agreement that Johnson negotiated, signed and had endorsed by a general election.
Let us assume the ‘troubles’ never happened at all and the Irish border is where it geographically is and should be. Ireland would have to operate it as any other EU member state with an external border would do. There would be the full range of SPS and other checks plus customs controls, exactly as listed in the NI protocol. We shouldn’t forget this.
The protocol does two fundamental things that we agreed to, it shifts the border to the Irish Sea ports and it transfers the responsibility for carrying out the checks to the British government. The EU supervise the controls and have the power to direct British border force officials to carry out any checks they deem necessary (paragraph 2 Article 12 of the NIP) - "Where the Union representative requests the authorities of the United Kingdom to carry out control measures in individual cases for duly stated reasons, the authorities of the United Kingdom shall carry out those control measures."
As long as the NIP is in force we are going to get headlines like these (note the article mentions Connelly's piece as well):
Tensions rise at Irish border over EU inspectors with a finger in too many pies https://t.co/sgoEYLgPmB
— Christopher Hope📝 (@christopherhope) May 22, 2021
What the U.K. want is rely on a few vague statements in the protocol that talk of the checks being as unobtrusive as possible in order to avoid some or even most of the checks. The UK government was apparently expecting the EU to suspend all of the normal border functions and EU laws listed in the annexes so that the border disappeared.
The EU meanwhile say if you want to avoid the vast majority of checks all you need to do is align with EU rules. That would cut the bureaucracy by 80-90 per cent.
But to Lord Frost and the Brexiteers that is anathema. They want to diverge. They want to have different rules. This to them is the very essence of Brexit, it’s raison d'etre as it were.
Anyway Connelly quotes an Irish official::
"Now they're [The UK] using the famous unfettered access phrase as applying in both directions [from GB-NI, as well as NI-GB], which was never the case," says one official present.
"There’s also this new approach of, well, we signed up to what we signed up to, but we didn't really think anyone was going to implement it the way the EU was going to implement it."
Furthermore, Dublin fears London will insist that, even if the current technical negotiations produce flexibilities here and there, that will still not be enough, as Northern Ireland will still be treated differently from the rest of the UK.
"If that’s what they think, then we have a real problem, a bigger problem," says a senior Irish source.
The NI protocol is the diplomatic embodiment of the contradictions of Brexit. We don’t want a border (Steve Baker once called it a ‘modest’ border when he was in his we gotta get out of here mode) but at the same time we want to create the conditions (divergence) which make a border essential. It's stupid.
In the slightly paraphrased words of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, we want things to stay exactly the same so things can be very different.
The UK is asking the EU to take a 'risk based' approach and ignore a lot of goods unlikely to find their way south. Connelly again:
"It’s understood the European Commission did explore the UK’s "risk" proposal in depth.
"In the end it was concluded that London was asking the EU to overturn, or at least compromise on, a substantial body of law and jurisprudence, which 27 sovereign governments - including the UK when it was a member - negotiated, approved and currently apply, in order to reassure a public still spooked by food scandals.
"Europe instead suggests that if the UK wants a sweeping solution to the food issue, one that would take care of up to 90% of Irish Sea checks and controls, then it should align with EU food safety rules."
The upcoming confrontation is the final act of Brexit in my opinion. The NI protocol, unlike the private assurances apparently given to Tory MPs by Gove to stop them looking at it in detail, the WA is not going to be ‘changed later.’ It is what it is, with Boris Johnson’s signature on the bottom and the democratic support of the British people behind it.
Those calling for it to be rejected wouldn’t want to go against the will of the people surely?
In any case the EU and Washington will never allow it. The people of NI can reject it in a vote in 2024, and they may well do so. But it will only give two years to allow politicians to go through the same exercise to find an alternative arrangement. Nobody wants a border in Ireland, the US don’t and the EU don’t and we have given our unequivocal backing to the GFA. There must be a border and it must be in the Irish sea - or we either dump Brexit or lose Northern Ireland - possibly both..
The conditions in 2024 will be exactly as they are now. The Irish trilemma will still be sitting there as large as life blocking the road to the Brexit uplands, where a glimpse of sunshine is seen occasionally through the swirling mist of uncertainty and threat of violence under permanently grey and darkening skies.
Coupled with that, Brexiteers will be unable to show any tangible benefits of leaving the EU and we will have had three or four more humiliating Eurovision Song Contests. The pressure from fishing and farming communities, industry, the financial sector and perhaps even blue wall voters will surely grow on the dwindling band of hardline Brexiteers.
Who knows wat will happen then?
