Northern Ireland Protocol

What Will Happen With NI Protocol Debacle

What Are the Possibilities?
  1. The UK joins the Single Market  (SM) - Sadly I doubt this will be the outcome. SM requires level playing field, and the UK government has already ensured this cannot happen with their massive bribe to Nissan to get them to remain in Sunderland. Also, I think, single market presupposes FoM.
  2. Johnson tows the line and commits the resources necessary for implementing the NI protocol (including giving the EU access to scrutinize its correct operation). - I just do not think the UK is capable of this. They have not managed even with £37,00,000,000 to have an effective track and trace system. The NI protocol is no walk in the park.
  3. NI leaves the UK and joins the ROI and so becomes part of the EU. Long term perhaps this might be in NI's ad the ROI's best interest especially if they receive help from the EU. However, I doubt Johnson's ego would allow this obvious failure of statesmanship in manifestly breaking up the UK (Scotland to follow?). Also, it is not an overnight option and certainly would require at the very least putting it to the people of NI in a referendum.
  4. More saber-rattling between the UK and the EU
    • The UK threatens to renege on the contract it signed and to tear up and ignore the NI protocol.
    • The EU (not wanting to demand a hard border between NI and ROI because it actively supports the GFA) threatens sanctions in the form of an EU/UK trade war.
    • That is a war the UK cannot win since prior to Brexit half of all UK trade was with the EU and only around 18% (being kind) of EU trade was with the UK (3). 
    • The EU offers a pragmatic solution and estimate of the cost of having a hole in their SM border and asks the UK to pay up or face a trade war.
    • Johnson haggles the price a bit but ultimately accepts the offer. and returns to the UK triumphant saying that he has put the EU in its place and has succeeded in achieving frictionless UK/NI trade.
Does the last option ring a bell? It ought to. It's the same Smoke and Mirrors tactic he has used in getting Nissan to remain in Sunderland. Johnson made the UK taxpayer stump up the £ millions for a bribe to offset the extra costs Nissan will inevitably incur due to Brexit.

If, and it is just conjecture on my part, this is the way it goes, Johnson will use the same smoke and mirrors strategy to make himself look good on the NI protocol entirely at the expense of the UK taxpayer.

Who is the UK taxpayer? Well, it is not the rich. Rich people like our Tory MPs have so much wealth that much of it is invested outside of the UK in things like foreign properties, offshore investments, essentially anything that is not directly linked to the UK pound or the UK economy. Most UK citizens have all their eggs in the UK economic basket, typically just their house, their wages, and state pension. These are the people who will pay for Brexit.

The NI Protocol Problem in a Nutshell

  1. The UK (England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) prior to Brexit were members of the EU.
  2. The ROI is also and remains a member of the EU.
  3. Members of the EU enjoy participation in the EU Single Market (SM) that allows frictionless trade without the imposition of tariffs, taxation, or customs checks for goods moving between its member states.
  4. After the end of the Brexit Transition Period, The UK no longer participates in the EU SM so requires a hard border between ROI and NI for the purpose of tariffs, taxation, and customs checks.
  5.  That a hard border between ROI and NI is explicit against the terms of the GFA and would be likely to see a return to conditions and violence that the GFA brought an end to. 
No one wants to see a return to violence. And the EU and UK have expressed as much and so have both signed and agreed a binding contract called the NI Protocol (1);  a complex agreement (2) that attempts to square the circle of NI being part of the UK (outside of the SM) and also, at the same time, remaining borderless with ROI (which is inside the SM). Squaring the circle of NI sort of being inside the SM and sort of outside of the SM at the same time was always going to be a tall order.

Johnson waffled his way through the lead-up to the Brexit deal with talk of light-touch, electronic tracking systems which turned out to be as illusory as unicorns. It was clear (at least to me back in May 2020) that the UK government had neither intent nor ability to implement a NI protocol that would satisfy the EU. 

Lord Frost (chief Brexit Negotiator) says "burdens" created by the Northern Ireland Protocol will "worsen, not improve over time" and so with Johnson, he demands the EU renegotiate the NI Protocol to the UK's liking, or they intend to renege on the agreement the UK signed, and thus leave the EU with a massive unpoliced hole within their SM border.

 

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