Opinion

Brian Feeney: Donaldson is threatening prosperity of business in north

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester earlier this month. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire
DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester earlier this month. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson speaking at a fringe event at the Conservative Party conference in Manchester earlier this month. Picture by Stefan Rousseau/PA Wire

YOU’VE probably noticed a change in DUP rhetoric in the last couple of weeks.

Until the beginning of this month Donaldson led the party chant “The protocol must go”, taken up by the paltry numbers they managed to mislead into trailing around the streets of some unionist towns.

Now, Donaldson is saying the proposals of Maros Sefcovic “fall far short of what’s needed”. In other words, he’s accepting the protocol must stay.

You might also notice that Donaldson is copying exactly the same words as the British government who incited unionists to protest in the first place.

Remember that until February this year, DUP figures, including Arlene Foster, saw ‘opportunities’ in the protocol that mysteriously vanished following shocking poll results that month.

Since then the British government recklessly weaponised unionist opposition, but Donaldson went overboard in his desperation to prevent Jim Allister outflanking him.

For a time he copied every utterance of Allister, that is until about a fortnight ago when he realised that the British government wasn’t demanding an end to the protocol, but a version they approve of which eliminates the role of the European Court of Justice.

Now Sir Jeffrey has turned into little Sir Echo, parroting every word of the belligerent Lord Frost who is happily repudiating everything he proposed and negotiated in 2019.

It was Frost who said Vice-President Sefcovic’s proposals “fall far short of what is needed”. It was Frost who suddenly decreed the jurisdiction of the CJEU was a British ‘red line’.

Suddenly the CJEU has become objectionable to Donaldson too who repeats word for word Frost’s spurious objections.

It’s doubtful if Donaldson understands the British objections to the CJEU. As you read here last week, they’re mainly based on a long outdated 18th century theory of sovereignty enunciated by Edmund Burke.

However, there’s another important reason the British believe the CJEU has to be removed. Frost and the uber-Brexiteers, whose hero he is, believe that in order really to ‘get Brexit done’ the UK has to be able to diverge from the standards of the single market.

Now here’s the rub. In order to prevent a hard British border on this island the north has to stay in the single market, ergo the protocol. If the British government wants to diverge, say in food standards, and allow the sale of chlorinated chicken or cheap hormone-treated beef, then the EU will say no to such products in the north. The same will apply to manufacturing standards.

As the guardian of the single market’s union code the CJEU will endorse the EU’s refusal. When the British say they can’t have the CJEU exercising jurisdiction over part of the UK, this scenario is what they really mean.

Businesses here have made clear they have no objection to the CJEU and why would they have since they all adhere to EU standards? It’s only when British standards decline that the CJEU would step in to defend the single market.

As time goes on divergence is inevitable and with it the gap between the north and GB will grow wider.

Now the question is, does Donaldson support the British position because he’s quite happy to see divergence of standards in food, medicine and manufacturing which will prevent businesses here developing their unique advantage of selling into the single market? After all, we know he’s content with 40,000 job losses if the result is a hard British border here.

Or is the answer simpler? Is it the case that he’s so anxious to suck up to people in this rotten incompetent British government that he doesn’t understand the implications of the slogans he’s parroting?

The fact is that you can’t have the protocol without the CJEU which safeguards the single market and the customs union: it doesn’t have any other role here.

By regurgitating the garbage Frost pours out Donaldson is threatening the prosperity of business here.