Later on Tuesday, UK foreign secretary Liz Truss will set out the UK government’s plans for unilateral action which will override parts of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The government’s plans for legislation will see parts of the Protocol ignored, which prime minister Boris Johnson described as an “insurance” policy to help goods enter Northern Ireland from Great Britain more easily.
Speaking after visiting party leaders in Northern Ireland on Monday in Belfast, Johnson suggested that the UK remained willing to negotiate but needed a back-up plan, explaining: “We would love this to be done in a consensual way with our friends and partners, ironing out the problems, stopping some of these barriers east-west.
“But to get that done, to have the insurance we need, we need to proceed with a legislative solution at the same time.”
The Northern Ireland Protocol formed part of the UK’s Brexit deal agreed in late 2019. It avoids a hard border on the island of Ireland but stipulates goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are subject to checks and paperwork.
This has effectively created an Irish Sea trade border, which has angered unionists who feel the Protocol undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the UK.
The ensuing row over how it has affected trade in Northern Ireland has seen the formation of a new devolved government in Northern Ireland blocked, with the Democratic Unionist Party [DUP] refusing to enter a power-sharing government with nationalist party, Sinn Féin, as an act of protest against the Protocol.
After Boris Johnson met with Northern Ireland’s party leaders on Monday, Sinn Féin said that he and the UK government were allowing the DUP to “hold society to ransom” by not taking action to restore the executive at Stormont and instead going down the route of unilateral action.
Ahead of Truss’ Commons statement on the government’s plans for legislation, Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis said that nothing was off the table, but draft legislation is not expected to be forthcoming on Tuesday.
He said: “If we do need to legislate, we will not shy away from doing that.”
Lewis suggested that the government’s plans for changing the Protocol could be as simple as establishing a “green lane”, where certain products staying within the UK internal market would not be subject to checks.
Part of the difficulty around the Protocol is that many goods arriving in Northern Ireland from Great Britain are systematically checked because of what the EU sees as a risk that these goods could proceed into the Republic of Ireland given the lack of a hard border on the island. A green lane could potentially resolve this by only subjecting goods proceeding into the Republic to checks.
Nevertheless, if the UK government were to put forward legislation to implement its plans, it would require consent from Parliament and could take some time to get through.
The EU has retaliated against the UK government’s talk of unilateral action by threatening trade sanctions, and the potential for a trade war between the trading bloc and the UK is of concern to businesses, consumers and politicians on both sides, particularly during the current cost-of-living crisis.
The EU has put forward its own solutions to reduce checks on goods but not eliminate them entirely, but the UK dismissed these.
After holding talks with Truss on Monday, the EU’s leading negotiator and vice-president of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic, urged Westminster to instead engage with the bloc’s “flexibilities” on the issue and not pursue unilateral action as a solution.
Sefcovic said: “With political will, practical issues arising from the implementation of the protocol in Northern Ireland can be resolved.
“Engaging with us on the flexibilities we offer would be a better course of action than a unilateral one. We're ready to play our part, as from the outset.”
Simon Coveney, the foreign affairs minister for the Republic of Ireland, has said that the UK's plans for unilateral action are not the answer and would be "breaking international law".
However, the UK has received legal advice that unilateral action would now be considered lawful, given that the Protocol is leading to social unrest in Northern Ireland, on account of the formation of its devolved government being blocked as a consequence.
Image taken from Wikimedia Commons
