Take back control: a plan B for Northern Ireland

Things are heating up in the battle over Northern Ireland. After his trip to Belfast yesterday, the Prime Minister is releasing a ‘take back control’ Bill that will unilaterally change the terms of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It’s part bluff, part serious – and could very well reopen Brexit wars.

Liz Truss’s statement this afternoon followed the gameplan revealed in detail by James Forsyth in a recent cover piece. The Queen’s Speech carries an anodyne-sounding reference to protecting the Good Friday Agreement and ‘supporting’ devolution but (to quote James) ‘these words will be a coded threat to the European Union that the UK is prepared to unilaterally tear up parts of the Brexit deal relating to Northern Ireland’. We are now at that stage.

The basis for the action was laid out last year (details here), saying that ‘consumers have seen real impacts: at least 200 companies in Great Britain have stopped servicing the Northern Ireland market’ with trade down 12 per cent – thereby inflaming public opinion, with mass protests and every elected Unionist opposed to the Protocol.

UK grievances include:

• Medicines being at risk of discontinuation because the red tape makes imports unviable (the EU says it has sorted this).
• Pets (and guide dogs) have faced ‘the prospect of unnecessary vaccinations and treatments, and bureaucratic certification hurdles simply to travel within the UK’.
• A 50 per cent rise in Ireland’s exports of goods to Northern Ireland vs 2018, filling a hole left by British exports.
• Britain-NI border accounts for 20 per cent of all checks made along the EU’s external border – more than any other EU country (despite NI representing just 0.5 per cent of the EU’s population).
• All of which exacerbates ‘perceptions of separation and threat to identity within the Unionist community’ with 30 unlawful anti-Protocol marches this month so far.
• The tension looks set to sink devolution in Northern Ireland, undermining the Good Friday Agreement and its principle of any deal needing buy-in from both sides.

The proposed remedies in today’s announcement include:

• Giving every UK firm ‘trusted trader’ status and freeing it from the need to give customs declarations to the EU for anything sent to Northern Ireland. The UK can say that HMRC can collect any relevant data and pass it on to Brussels to make sure the EU is not being flooded with cheap British imports via the back door. Businesses will also be able to choose whether to meet UK or EU standards under a dual regulatory regime.
• The ban on state aid in Northern Ireland – and VAT linked to that of the EU – will also be lifted by London. (The Protocol explains why Rishi Sunak’s VAT cut for solar panels was Britain-only, to fury in Belfast). The UK will argue that this clause has been overtaken by other assurances on state aid given in the Brexit Bill and by the UK’s Subsidy Control Bill. All this would have to go through the Lords and would be billed, not as tearing up the Protocol, but reforming it for the advantage of all.
• The UK will be able to decide on tax and spend policies across the whole of the country.
• Penalties will be slapped on any company which tries to abuse the new trading system.

Truss said: ‘We remain open to a negotiated solution but the urgency of the situation means we can’t afford to delay any longer. The UK has clear responsibilities as the sovereign government of Northern Ireland to ensure parity of esteem and the protection of economic rights. We are clear that the EU will not be negatively impacted in any way.’ The changes are expected to take place before parliamentary summer recess begins in July.

So what now? Let’s go back to James’s story again: ‘Several of those involved hope that the bill will act as a warning, and show the EU that the technical negotiations currently on offer simply aren’t sufficient. This time, No. 10 will declare that… there is no breach of international law because they are moving to protect the pre-existing Good Friday Agreement. Johnson can argue that all three strands of that deal are now in trouble. There is no power sharing, no north-south ministerial collaboration, and the Protocol disrupts east-west relations. The government argues that the common factor in all this is the protocol.’

Ministers are making it clear that they are willing to drop the Bill if the EU will negotiate, but this is not just a rise. The politics is such that it suits Johnson and Truss to press ahead.