Observations

Reading the entire EU Commission report which was lodged in the Northern Ireland Assembly’s Library on Friday - and we have – one is struck by one thing. This is a report by agents of foreign powers, dictating what happens on United Kingdom soil. The impression is of being lectured to as naughty children.

Facts4EU.Org has always fought for a strong, independent United Kingdom, free from laws imposed by unelected bureaucrats in Brussels. We are proud of the role we played in achieving a partial Brexit, but sadly there is still work to be done to break free completely from the shackles of a highly dysfunctional colonial power.

Are the DUP now stepping up?

It is entirely fitting and proper that local politicians who were never consulted about the Protocol in the first place – representing a community that under the terms of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement should have been able to give their consent - have taken matters into their own hands through a democratic institution.

There have been countless deadlines over the course of the last six months seeking firstly to bring the Protocol to the negotiating table, and secondly to get the EU to see sense that it is an entirely unnecessary encumbrance and an affront to the UK’s integrity. These deadlines have all come and gone, with new deadlines being set, extensions to ‘grace periods’ – and even Belfast’s High Court postponing an appeal of the Judicial review because it was told a resolution was imminent. That was back in November.

We are where we are now because at different times it has suited either party – the EU or the UK Government – to allow drift to take place. In the case of the EU (and its proxy, the Republic of Ireland) this is understandable, as the Protocol suits them both just fine. This is because we can already see the growing economic evidence of product substitution displacing British suppliers in Northern Ireland.

It is not understandable or excusable for the UK Government, which had originally said it would invoke Article 16 if nothing was achieved by November 30.

It is clear the EU is playing a long game so that Northern Ireland becomes more and more embedded in the EU’s governance and less and less in that of the United Kingdom of which it is supposedly a part. It is also clear there has been a lack of resolve in the UK Cabinet, with repeated reports of the Chancellor Rishi Sunak objecting to the invoking of Article 16. It is no surprise that Lord Frost finally resigned from the Government before Christmas.

Now all the pressure has been on Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, to demonstrate what she is made of. However she too has allowed negotiations to drift even though the Stormont elections are due in May. She started by banging the drum for invoking Article 16 by writing in the Sunday Telegraph she was willing to use the legal safety valve, but from the moment she met EU Commissioner and chief negotiator Maroš Šefčovič he has been applauding her “change of tone”, with a new deadline set for the end of February.

The Foreign Secretary should use any suspension of customs checks as a means to demonstrate the EU has nothing to fear from any ‘contamination’ of its single market and press home this opportunity by threatening to invoke Article 16 if the EU seeks to escalate the dispute and inflame tensions.

After all, the EU has long claimed its support for the Protocol has been due to it respecting the Belfast Agreement and seeking to preserve peace in Northern Ireland. Were it to raise tensions that would threaten the peace, its abandonment of the moral high ground and descent into partisan gutter politics would be in plain sight for all to see.

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