In the renegotiation of the Northern Irish Protocol — the part of the Brexit deal that treats the six counties of Ireland still in union with the United Kingdom — it looks like the EU did most of the blinking. I’m still waiting for a full text.
I outlined the various dilemmas here and in previous essays.
So, how do you square the circle? How do you have a divergence between the customs practices of the EU and U.K. on the island of Ireland without installing a customs border dividing them? You can either put an effective EU border running through the United Kingdom itself, as was the case in the Northern Irish Protocol negotiated by Theresa May and Boris Johnson. Or you can accept a leakier solution where checks are more sporadic. The new deal envisions much more economic surveillance via “data sharing.”
Important acknowledgment that the concept of an economic United Ireland comes to an end with this Agreement.
Further welcome at para 66 that it is recognised NI will in fact- if unionist ‘brake’ is pulled & UK sovereignty is exercised- diverge from the Republic of Ireland. pic.twitter.com/aRhRUza5Si
— Jamie Bryson (@JamieBrysonCPNI) February 27, 2023
I actually think this is a huge comedown for the European Union side, which is effectively taking up the task of enforcing its customs union at every point of sale on the island of Ireland. It’s very likely to be a leaky but tolerable solution. The text goes to great lengths to disavow any language offensive to Northern Irish Unionists about an “all Island economic unity.” Jamie Bryson, the Unionist activist quoted above, is nobody’s idea of a softie on this. And he’s seeing some positive developments here.
However, it still might not be enough. Already Ian Paisley Jr. has said that it “won’t cut the mustard.”
‘My gut instinct is this isn’t going to cut the mustard.’
Ian Paisley Jr tells @OliviaUtley what he thinks of the new Northern Ireland Protocol deal. pic.twitter.com/SwTylEpY7P
— GB News (@GBNEWS) February 27, 2023
All the negotiations have as their goal the return of Unionists to Stormont, the Northern Irish Assembly. The DUP, the more populist Unionist party, has made fixing the Protocol their non-negotiable item before returning. Behind the scenes, the United States is putting pressure on everyone to get a deal done so that Joe Biden can make a trip later this spring to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which created a power-sharing arrangement at Stormont. For as much as people now praise the EU for its role in the peace process, the reality is that America had a huge hand in it, with Senator George Mitchell as the lead diplomat in the effort.