THE BRITISH government’s attitude to the Northern Ireland Protocol epitomises politics in the post-truth era.
Boris Johnson, Brandon Lewis and Lord Frost brazenly behave as if the post-Brexit trade arrangements were something they inherited, rather than the international treaty they negotiated and signed up to. They are attempting to move the goalposts mid-match, and change the rules while the game is ongoing.
This attitude instils neither confidence or trust. It is gaslighting on an international scale, a shameless effort by arguably the most perfidious and duplicitous Downing Street administration for several decades to deny responsibility for past actions.
It comes just a week after the same government sought to help the north move on from its past by denying victims and survivors not only justice, but rigorous investigation and truth.
The protocol is not perfect, far from it, but to suggest the arrangements are being imposed by Brussels against the will of the people in Northern Ireland and causing major disruption is inaccurate.
While it is a crude measurement, it’s fair to say that the majority of Stormont’s parties prefer the trade border in the Irish Sea rather than on the island. Meanwhile, the implications for the availability of goods have been negligible, though it is worth noting that we are still operating under the grace period for goods arriving from Britain. The signing of a Swiss-style SPS deal would ameliorate the majority of these problems in the long-term.
For reasons not yet apparent, apart from perhaps a quiet acknowledgement that they were outwitted by the EU negotiators, the British government has relatively quickly moved from a position of denying the existence of a trade border to acquiescing to political unionism’s narrative about the protocol “causing real harm” to the north’s economy, while undermining the identity of those who wish to remain in the UK.
The latter is a nebulous concept but if the “febrile political climate, protests and regrettable instances of occasional disorder” that Lord Frost cited yesterday are a reflection of the depth of feeling, we are forced to conclude that this apparent loss of identity is peripheral and intermittent.
That’s not to say unionist concerns should be dismissed but they would be taken more seriously if they were accompanied by some self-awareness and an acceptance that we arrived at this point because of Brexit and the insistence that Britain leave the Customs Union.
As one might expect, the EU and by extension the Irish government, looked after their interests while Boris Johnson happily sacrificed Northern Ireland unionists in order to protect his, namely maintaining power. As his former aide Dominic Cummings said, protocol was a “fudge”, and one where the Tory leader assumed the chickens wouldn’t come home to roost quite so soon.
The EU’s immediate rejection of the British government’s renegotiation plan was predictable though it potentially spells difficult weeks and months ahead for the north, which will reluctantly assume the role of the child with torn allegiances in a messy divorce.
What’s needed on both sides is perseverance, partnership and large helpings of pragmatism. But with British brinkmanship becoming the only game in town, the EU’s patience is quickly wearing thin.
