Britain has already seen two ‘Brexit days’ — when it formally left the EU on 31 January 2020 and the end of the transition period 11 months later. But given that it has taken less than six months for the Northern Ireland protocol to unravel, it’s horribly clear that our future relationship with the EU is anything but settled.
The transport of sausages and other chilled meats from Britain to Northern Irish supermarkets may seem a trivial matter. But the attempt by the EU to enforce a ban on this trade demonstrates what so many people found problematic about the idea of an internal UK border down the Irish Sea. And it is surely a harbinger of battles to come.
The protocol was supposed to be a tool which would do away with the need for a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Instead, it threatens simply to shift the hard border to between Belfast and Stranraer — stirring community tensions in the process, and defying the principles of the Good Friday Agreement.
What did the UK government expect when it signed up to the Northern Ireland protocol?
Already the protocol is bitterly resented: polls show almost half of those in Northern Ireland want it scrapped, a figure that will rise if the EU intends to maximise the disruption it causes. That hasn’t stopped Joe Biden appearing to take the side of the EU in the dispute.
But what did the UK government expect when it signed up to the protocol, which instigated customs checks on goods transported between Britain and Northern Ireland? The perils of such arrangements were there for all to see — which is why Theresa May, who relied on DUP votes following her 2017 election debacle, dismissed the idea from the start.
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