Cogito Ergo Non Serviam
EU, UK Far Apart on Northern Ireland Protocol
The EU and the UK are negotiating over how trade in Northern Ireland is going to work now that Brexit is done (badly), the Northern Ireland Protocol as it is known. The trouble is that the province is part of the UK that voted to leave the EU. It is also the only part of the UK with a land border with the EU. A hard border between the province and the Irish Republic could revive the sectarian misery from years ago. A border of any kind between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would upset the Unionist factions in the north. And no border at all would result in massive smuggling that the EU and the UK would both like to avoid. So they are in the process of negotiating some kind of fudge by which trade can continue while the politicians pretend things are secure. Right now, they are a long way apart.
The Guardian reported, "The EU has offered to sweep away most customs and health checks on animal and plant products entering Northern Ireland under a revision of the current system but both sides privately recognise that fundamental differences remain between their visions for the future."
The biggest problem is not customs and health checks. It isn't the paperwork or the possible tariffs. It is the enforcement mechanism. Inevitably, there are disputes that need resolution. Under the old arrangement (that is, when the UK was in the EU), the European Court of Justice was the ultimate authority. Now that the UK is out, the British are saying that the ECJ should not be in that position, that leaving the EU meant not having to deal with the ECJ anymore. The Brits have a point here. The ECJ is an instrument of the EU, and it just looks unfair to have one side's institution decide what is what.
By the same token, the ECJ has been managing the disputes in the area in question for years. It has proved itself effective in that time. So the EU takes the view that there is no point in fixing what is not broken.
Clearly, some diplomatic creativity is needed to square this circle. The EU needs to drop the idea that the ECJ is the right body. And the British courts are not appropriate either. What needs reconciling are the laws of Northern Ireland and the laws of the EU as applied in the Irish Republic. A pan-Irish tribunal could provide a solution. A couple of judges from the Ulster Court of Appeal (the highest court in Northern Ireland) and a couple from the Irish Supreme Court could be empowered to look after the cases that will inevitably arise. There should be no right of appeal to Britain's Supreme Court nor to the ECJ. The rubber meets the road in Ireland, so let the Irish on both sides of the divide sort it out.
Naturally, this is too much like sensible, so this is not going to be the resolution of the issue. What the Brits have is a Tory government that doesn't much care what the people of Northern Ireland want (after all, they voted to Remain in the EU). What the Tories want is for the problem to go away or to be able to run an election campaign against it.
Meanwhile, the EU has to convince 27 member states to go along with whatever they can get the Brits to accept. In another time, with different EU leaders, this could have been done in a week-end. Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron would have been able to sit the others down and hammer out something they could live with. Now, though, Dr. Merkel is leading a caretaker government ahead of her well-earned retirement, and Mr. Macron lacks the gravitas that is needed to fill in the gaps (Presidents de Gaulle and Chirac didn't have that much either -- France cannot take Germany's place as well as occupy its own).
Put another way, the situation is going to get messy, and that will happen soon. The Germans have already said they will not renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the British are considering suspending the protocol entirely.
The Irish Question was known to be a problem before the Brexit referendum, and it is no surprise that it continue to be one. This is what happens when a self-contradictory policy like Brexit is implemented.
© Copyright 2021 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.
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