Monday 11 October 2021

Frost is stirring up another crisis

This week promises to be an exciting one for NI protocol watchers. The EU are publishing proposals on Wednesday to try and mitigate some of the problems surrounding checks on goods but Frost has already dismissed them as not going far enough. He is going to Portugal tomorrow to make a speech about it (don't ask me why I have no idea) where he's expected to say the EU needs to make significant changes to the protocol including the ECJ giving up jurisdiction over the province.

The EU have repeatedly said this is not possible with Maros Sefcovic confirming again last week that the protocol is not going to be renegotiated.

It sets things up for an almighty row later this year - probably when food shortages are really starting to become apparent. This is on top of the rapidly developing energy crisis which threatens to close down a lot of high demand users in steel, cement and glass due to the rocketing price of gas. A looming cost of living crisis is also simmering in the background as the UC cut takes effect.

It seems to me a diplomatic crisis and a possible trade war with the EU is the last thing Johnson should want but no, he is working hard to add to an already difficult political situation.

This is Frost responding to a tweet from the Irish Foreign Minister:

He claims that the UK position on the ECJ is not new but if you look at the command paper he published in July the role of the ECJ is only mentioned on page 16 (of 27) and paragraph 42 and says:

"Thirdly, we should look to normalise the governance basis of the Protocol so that the relationship between the UK and the EU is not ultimately policed by the EU institutions including the Court of Justice."

Now it is apparently a new or totally restored red line and a deal breaker. We shall see.

Lord Moylan, one of the dimmest of Brexiteers (and that's saying something) yesterday retweeted an item from an academic lawyer suggesting the current dispute over the NI protocol is more of a problem for the EU than it is for the UK. The lawyer, Sylvia de Mars, goes through the argument about where Brussels will put the external border if Britain breaks the NI protocol and muses about checks between Ireland and the EU26, but ends her thread by saying it will eventually be about power, which Lord Moylan appears to be quite indignant about.

This is her conclusion:

"In sum, the EU is in a really difficult/disadvantaged position on the Protocol. But if the UK tries to exploit that, the EU will basically sit on the UK until it cries "mercy".  Everyone loses in that scenario. We can only hope at some point, common sense will win out."

His view seems to be that it's OK for Britain to repudiate an international treaty but the EU would be wrong to use raw economic power and must stick by the letter of the law. It is just not realistic. I wonder what he would say in Spain ignored the Treaty of Utrecht which ceded Gibraltar to Britain?

There has been a lot of talk about the UK being 'forced' into signing the WA from a position of weakness, as if the treaty was agreed under duress. The Telegraph had an editorial about it at the weekend. The suggestion is that Johnson signed it because the opposition had forced him to by preventing a no deal exit. I'm not sure that was ever true. The Hilary Benn inspired European Union (Withdrawal) (No. 2) Act 2019 would have simply forced a delay until 31 January 2020 - which we went for in any case even though Johnson had reached an agreement.

We were in a weak position that is true, but the Benn Act didn't add very much if anything at all. And in any case, plenty of people were pointing out that Ireland had to accept partition in 1921 faced with threats from Britain. Spain probably weren't too happy about Gibraltar in 1713 either. 

In fact there are probably few countries who haven't forced others to accept something in a treaty because they enjoyed a position of strength - something we did a lot of over several hundred years - now welcome to the real world.

I also believe that if anything our position now and going forward is much weaker than it was in October 2019. We can't threaten a no deal Brexit because we are signatories to a legally watertight treaty, Trump has been replaced by a pro-Ireland president with Irish ancestry and the catastrophic impact of Brexit on trade is becoming ever more apparent by the day.

If we couldn't force the EU's hand between 2017 and 2019 on anything substantial, how do we think we will manage it in 2022 with the economy on its knees?

Frost nay have a problem trying to get all this past the people of NI anyway. Firstly, the ECJ issue is one of principle, it has little if any practical effect on everyday life in the six counties. Secondly, manufactures are right behind it as this tweet shows:

Manufacturing NI say nobody has brought up the role of the ECJ in ten months of talks and they complain that the UK government has done nothing to get the tariff rebate scheme up and running - something they have complete control over.

Finally, Northern Ireland must look at us with astonishment; empty supermarket shelves and brawls breaking out on filling station forecourts and wonder if they really do want to be part of it. 

No, I don't think this is a battle the UK government can win and a united Ireland is just a few steps closer.

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