Wherever Boris Johnson goes he has only ever left his successors to pick up the pieces, clear up his bungled efforts, and solve problems he created while he goes on to more lucrative things. Nowhere is this more true than in North Ireland. As Rishi Sunak struggles to find a lasting solution to the protocol, anathema to Unionists, the former PM’s income from the US lecture circuit since he left office is said to be approaching £5 million. He should be prosecuted for living off immoral earnings. Meanwhile, Johnson’s many supporters in the Tory party plot to return the protocol’s Jerry builder back to Downing Street. It's utterly insane.
Make no mistake, the final denouement of the protocol is not far off. The two sides are said to be close to reaching an agreement on the main sticking points that have vexed Unionists for three years and more. An announcement could come as soon as next week.
However, no one is optimistic. The chances of reaching a settlement that satisfies the EU, the ERG, Unionists, and Nationalists look vanishingly small. All sides will need to compromise, but concessions may be hard to come by. The EU says its own red lines are intact.
The DUP appears singularly unmoved by leaks that appear to show the UK government and the EU are near to a conclusion.
A person described by the BBC as “a senior Conservative Brexit supporter” has told them, “I sense that the PM isn't really sure that what he has is good enough. But he now seems locked into this talks process from a position of weakness."
Hardly a surprise, some may think. It was one of the things remainers warned about in 2016, that Britain is not the world power it once was, much less so now than in the 1960s when we first applied to join, and in a relationship outside the EU, we would always be the supplicant.
As a big player inside we wielded a lot of influence in Brussels, now Malta or Estonia are more influential.
This is the future, we should get used to it. The Guardian takes the view that ‘Brexit is never done’ and Britain’s relationship with Europe will be a ‘constant negotiation’. I agree with the second part, but I also think Professor Michael Dougan is right when he says, Brexit is actually done because we have left the EU which is all the ballot paper asked for.
Dougan posted what I believe is a useful thread:
1) Insofar as Brexit means "UK departure from EU", seems nonsensical to ask whether it works [better] or not. Brexit is a simple fact: the UK has left the EU, is no longer a Member State and is now a third country. In that sense, the entire question feels misplaced, even pointless.
— Michael Dougan (@mdouganlpool) February 13, 2023
He suggests the real question is, “ 'how do we now run the UK?'. Answering that question means taking into account the fact of Brexit, and its inherent consequences, many of which are undeniably negative. But Brexit itself cannot work any better or worse, because it’s simply a settled fact"
We freely negotiated the WA and the TCA as a sovereign nation, nobody forced us to accept the NIP or anything else. Both agreements were ratified by parliament. The DUP may be unhappy but the truth is Westminster decided to apply different laws to Northern Ireland.
We could have simply left in March 2019, but we didn’t because no politician has been able to accept the damage that would have resulted. And what was true then will be true in ten, twenty years at least, and probably forever. The sheer asymmetry of the relationship is a fact of life.
Every prospective PM has made all sorts of pledges before getting into No 10 but faced with making the decisions that would be catastrophic for the UK economy, they all backdown. Sunak is no different.
I point to Professor Dougan's thread (do read it) because the former UKIP MEP, Ben Habib has an article in The Daily Express: Astonishingly six years after Brexit EU still has whip hand over Britain. I don't know what he expected after Brexit but it will always be the case that the EU will have the whip hand. Habib says, "When the cross-party group of Remainer MPs met at Ditchley Park last week I hope they started by acknowledging Brexit has not been done."
It seems to me one or other of these two is wrong and personally, I now think that's Mr. Habib.
Brexit is indeed 'done' if done very badly. The root of Habib's argument is here:
"First and foremost, the country did not leave as one United Kingdom. There is now a Supreme Court ruling acknowledging, by virtue of the Northern Ireland Protocol (part of the Withdrawal Agreement), British citizens in Northern Ireland are not on the same footing as those in Great Britain.
"Northern Ireland has been left behind in the EU’s Single Market for goods.
"It is required to adhere to laws made by the EU, overseen by the EU, and adjudicated by the EU. There is a partition down the Irish Sea, separating Great Britain from Northern Ireland. The Acts of Union, the constitutional bedrock of our country, have been broken. This is the biggest act of constitutional self-harm visited on the United Kingdom by any government in history."
The law passed by a sovereign parliament in Westminster has now been checked all the way up to the Supreme Court and found to be perfectly legal. Without Brexit, this wouldn't have been necessary or even possible. Had a UK government tried to impose a border in the Irish sea the ECJ would have stepped in I'm sure.
What he suggests is proof Brexit has not been 'done' is in fact the reverse.
Another Brexiteer, the barrister Martin Howe, writes a similar piece in The Telegraph:
"The Government is reportedly nearing a deal with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol. Apparently, goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK will not face “physical” customs checks if they will be consumed in Northern Ireland. But – and it’s a big but – the suggestion has been made that Downing Street is prepared to accept that the EU’s court at Luxembourg should continue to exercise jurisdiction over UK territory."
Once again, he finds it intolerable. He closes; "A deal with the EU which fails to achieve the removal of EU law from Northern Ireland, along with the jurisdiction of the ECJ to enforce it, will fail to restore the integrity of the UK as an independent country and will not last."
So, the new arrangements may find a technical solution to reduce the frequency of checks on food and products bound for NI, but the role of the ECJ is as sacrosanct for the EU as it is intolerable for men like Jeffrey Donaldson the DUP leader, Habib, and Howe.
The question is what can they do about it?
Britain was in no position in 2018 to leave without a deal, whatever Theresa May claimed. This is why she wanted to keep all the benefits of the single market and the customs union. The same in 2019, which is the reason Johnson was forced to swallow the protocol in the first place, regardless of his bluster beforehand and flat-out lies afterward.
We are in no position to withstand a trade war now or to face retaliation by the EU if we don’t implement the terms agreed by Johnson. Whatever small concessions are offered by the EU we will have to accept. Of course, Sunak is in a weak position.
This however cuts no ice with the DUP or the ERG. A reduction in checks, using red and green channels to separate goods bound for Ireland in the south from those intended for Northern Ireland, will be welcomed and may be accepted. Other of the DUP’s seven tests may also be met.
The problem will come in the role of the ECJ. Look out for an almighty row.
You have to feel sorry for Sunak. He’s like a bomb disposal expert slowly unscrewing the detonator from the landmine laid while beads of sweat drip onto the device. It could all go up at any moment blowing him into political oblivion or he could emerge from the trench to some derisory clapping.
There’s nothing in between. Sunak will get no thanks and if successful, Johnson will step in, claim this was always the plan anyway and his [Johnson's] supporters will cheer him to the rafters. How cruel politics is.
One might feel more sympathy for the DUP had they not been such enthusiastic supporters of Brexit in the first place. It was a failed attempt to get a land border restored on the island of Ireland. Their Brexit landmine exploded in October 2019 when BJ agreed to a border in the Irish sea.
