Opinion

Alex Kane: The DUP needs to get the Brexit sea border problem fixed - and quickly

Alex Kane

Alex Kane

Alex Kane is an Irish News columnist and political commentator and a former director of communications for the Ulster Unionist Party.

A few days ago Arlene Foster was encouraging unionism to "step through  the gateway" and embrace the opportunities presented by the latest  circumstances - the protocol and the new border
A few days ago Arlene Foster was encouraging unionism to "step through the gateway" and embrace the opportunities presented by the latest circumstances - the protocol and the new border A few days ago Arlene Foster was encouraging unionism to "step through the gateway" and embrace the opportunities presented by the latest circumstances - the protocol and the new border

The very lateness of the trade deal between the EU and the UK (Christmas Eve) and the cliff-edge negotiations following the UK's threat to break international law, meant it was almost inevitable that a majority of businesses wouldn't have had enough time to absorb the details of the deal, let alone prepare the necessary paperwork required for goods coming/going between NI (still under EU rules) and GB (entirely outside the EU's ambit).

So, it was also almost inevitable there would be, for a while at least, significant teething difficulties when the new rules kicked in on January 1. Again, it was no surprise that we'd be knee-deep in pictures of empty shelves and queues of lorries; or that some people would use those images to do what has become the knee jerk response in the social media age, turn every predicted inconvenience into a crisis.

Unionists have blamed the SDLP/SF/Alliance and an assortment of business groups and civic leaders of supporting - indeed, calling for - a border down the Irish Sea, while now complaining about the consequences. Those parties have, in turn, blamed the DUP for supporting Brexit in the first place, knowing that, in any form, "it was bound" to upend political dynamics in NI and worsen UK/RoI and NI/RoI relationships.

The DUP, in particular, needs this problem sorted - and quickly. The four-and-a-half years from June 2016 to December 2020 were all about projected scenarios, what-ifs, Conservative Party internecine warfare and, let's be honest, huge amounts of waffle from all sides. What we've had since January 1 is the reality of Brexit. A reality which is having an actual, measurable impact on all of us, remainer and leaver alike. The DUP is going to have a massive electoral problem if its core vote is, for months on end, going to be hit in the pocket by the impact.

There is a provision in the NI Protocol (Article 16) which can be invoked if there is a problem with frictionless trade - but it needs to be invoked by the UK government. Boris Johnson told Jeffrey Donaldson during Prime Minister's Question Time on Wednesday of his 'preparedness to use Article 16 to remedy the problems' created by the protocol. Hmmm. That's as reassuring as a promise from my son that he's prepared to give broccoli a try.

The other problem for the DUP is that of mixed messaging. A few days ago Arlene Foster was encouraging unionism to "step through the gateway" and embrace the opportunities presented by the latest circumstances - the protocol and the new border. But now we have Ian Paisley and Donaldson (and others) highlighting the difficulties of the protocol and the new border and urging Johnson and Gove to invoke Article 16 and mitigate the damage being done by both.

As well as being a fairly unsubtle reminder of how the party's parliamentary group (along with a growing section of the assembly group) view's Foster's authority, the mixed messaging also fuels the unsettling perception within unionism that Northern Ireland really has arrived at the place I've described as constitutional granny-flat status. It's a psychologically damaging place for unionism to find itself, made worse by the fact that its fate still seems to lie in the legerdemaining hands of Bobo The Magician.

It is essential, in Northern Ireland's centenary year, that NI looks like a properly integrated part of the UK. Johnson has undermined that position. The damage he has done need not be fatal, but it does need to be counterbalanced by a Brexit that works reasonably well, with minimum inconvenience and into which a substantial majority of the population here can buy. My gut instinct is we'll end up in that position, not least because it is not in the interests of either side to worsen relationships; and nor is it in the interests of the EU, or the UK and Irish governments to allow Northern Ireland to continue to be regarded as a 'problem.'

When all is said and done I think we are in a better place than we were at the start of autumn (even with the ongoing difficulties of the pandemic). There are certainly opportunities which shouldn't be dismissed out of hand: and a year beginning with opportunities should be welcomed. I'm not, by the way, expecting the executive to be of any help. That, in itself, is the best potential opportunity of all.