The BBC has reported that the UK government could publish legislation on Thursday [June 9] which would enable Westminster to override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Protocol is the mechanism within the UK’s Brexit deal with the EU which prevents a hard border on the island of Ireland. It does, however, require that new goods checks are carried out on some products entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain.
This effective creation of a trade border in the Irish Sea has angered unionists, who believe it undermines Northern Ireland’s position as part of the UK and leads to unnecessary supply chain delays and extra costs.
The Democratic Unionist Party [DUP], which holds the second highest number of seats in the Legislative Assembly in Northern Ireland following the recent election, has blocked a new devolved power-sharing government from being formed in the region as an act of protest over the Protocol.
The DUP has insisted that until “action” is taken to address issues caused by the Protocol, it will not support the election of a new speaker at Stormont nor a first and deputy first minister. This has left Northern Ireland without a functioning government and raised concerns over how financial support for Northern Irish residents to get through the cost-of-living crisis will be distributed.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions on Wednesday, UK prime minister Boris Johnson said that the “balance and symmetry of the Good Friday Agreement” was Parliament’s “highest legal, international priority and it is what we must deliver”, fuelling speculation that unilateral action could be imminent to deal with the Protocol, answer unionist concerns, and pave the way for the devolved government in Northern Ireland to be restored.
Johnson’s comments come after foreign secretary Liz Truss set out plans for a new law in May that would enable the UK government to override parts of the deal.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland minister Lord Caine has commented that the new bill enabling unilateral action will be published “very shortly” but did not disclose when.
Speaking to the BBC, Lord Caine also fired off a warning to MPs and Lords about opposing the legislation, saying that although “scrutiny functions” were to be taken seriously, it would be “very foolish” to “try to frustrate, delay and hold this up” given the likelihood of “making the situation in Northern Ireland worse than it is now”.
Conor Burns, minister of state for Northern Ireland, informed Irish network RTÉ that any unilateral action taken by the UK would be to “recalibrate” the Northern Ireland Protocol, rather than “tearing it up”, given some of the benefits that it brings to local businesses.
Burns said: “We recognise the attractiveness of the Protocol and the place that it leaves Northern Ireland in. But the reality is that we have now got ridiculously excessive checks on goods that are moving within the United Kingdom's internal market that will never go near the Irish Republic, that are absolutely no threat whatsoever to the integrity of the single market.”
Despite this, reaction from the Republic of Ireland and from Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin, which emerged as the largest party in the recent Northern Ireland Assembly election, has been critical.
Speaking at the European Parliament in Brussels on Wednesday, Michéal Martin, the taoiseach [prime minister] of the Republic of Ireland, said that the UK taking unilateral action on the Protocol would come as a “historic low point”.
While conceding that it was “perfectly reasonable” for the UK to want to make improvements to how the Protocol works on the ground, Martin said that any attempt to do this outside of negotiated agreements and joint mechanisms would undermine law and come as “bad faith” on the part of the UK.
Michelle O’Neill, the Sinn Féin deputy leader who is in line to become Northern Ireland’s next first minister, added that the UK going it alone on overriding the Protocol would be “unacceptable to the wider public and majority of MLAs who support” it.
O’Neill added that unilateral action would be “in breach of an international agreement and undermine international rule of law” and any threats to carry such action out are a “dereliction of duty”.
Colum Eastwood, the leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party [SDLP] in Northern Ireland, called the UK’s approach to the Protocol “reckless and damaging”.
Eastwood went on to say that Westminster “claims to want to protect the Good Friday Agreement” but had “abandoned the politics of consensus” and “ignored the clear will of people” across Northern Ireland in doing so.
On the other hand, Gavin Robinson, the DUP MP for the Belfast East constituency, accused the EU, Republic of Ireland and Sinn Féin of being quick to criticise what he called “perceived failures by the United Kingdom” but remained “entirely deaf” to the concerns of unionists and of the fact that “progress in Northern Ireland requires unionists and nationalists moving forward together”.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
