If the Tories knew Northern Ireland protocol was a bad deal then they failed in their duty to the UK
The culprit: Boris Johnson screwed up Brexit by agreeing a trade deal so bad that it could end the fragile peace in Northern Ireland, just because he wanted to hit a deadline he had set for it. And he simply doesn’t care.
According to Tory Lord Barwell, it is wrong for Brexit minister Lord Frost to say the government underestimated the amount of restriction traders would suffer when moving goods to Northern Ireland; Boris Johnson knew the effect would cause serious harm all along.
Barwell says Johnson agreed that part of the Brexit trade deal solely because he “wanted to get Brexit done”.
So he went with a bad deal – knowing that it was bad.
He signed it because he wanted to hit a deadline.
And he signed it, reckless as to the effect it would have on trade in the province.
Worse still, he signed that deal in the knowledge that it would destabilise Northern Ireland and could end the fragile peace that has held there since 1998, because his deal rides roughshod over that deal’s conditions.
That is serious dereliction of duty, if true.
Barwell went on to say he thought Johnson had intended to “wriggle out” of the NI protocol later.
How’s that going for him, then?
Lord Frost, who negotiated the protocol, wrote [that] the UK had sent a “detailed proposal” for a veterinary agreement [but] “we have had very little back” from the EU.
He’s unlikely to get anything more. The EU has fulfilled its responsibility to its member states, and as an added bonus, a former member state that left has managed to create a hugely difficult problem for itself, that may be impossible to resolve.
If Barwell is correct, then the dire deal is entirely Boris Johnson’s fault, and the consequences of that deal – no matter how bad the situation becomes – are his fault as well.
And people were fooled into voting Tory because they were told Jeremy Corbyn would make a mess of Brexit.
Feel free to remind your Tory friends of that – and remind them that it was voting Tory that made sure that Brexit turned into the diabolical fiasco that it has become.
Source: Brexit: UK government knew NI Protocol ‘was a bad deal’ – BBC News
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In a speech to the House in regard to May’s ‘deal’ Geoffrey Cox said, knowingly, that were there to be ‘civil unrest in NI that any protocols could be abandoned as an emergency measure. The DUP were present for this and were indeed partners in government. Now that we have reached the point where the protocols should have been enacted we have seen threats to council employees, riots, violence to police officers and the official withdrawal of the ‘Loyalist’ Paramilitaries from the GFA, this means that, officially anyway, The Troubles have restarted. The DUP has been at the back of this since the start. It was part of the government when Cox knowingly ‘nodded’ towards them in parliament with an ‘invitation’ to violence.
Boris could be doing something to address the EU concerns and without (overly) upsetting the apple cart. All checks could be moved away from NI and onto UK mainland ports. The use of ‘seals’ as with the ‘security seals’ used for the Channel Tunnel for trusted warehouses would also be possible. This would do something to allay the grievances of the more mainstream ‘Loyalists’ but the DUP have been pushing for this crisis. They deliberately campaigned for Brexit, against the will of the people of NI, in order (they hoped) to reinstate a hard border on Ireland. They would have known, at least, this was unlikely but they knew it would be a chance to get out of the GFA. They campaigned against GFA forcefully but accepted it somewhat with the DUP leader personally engaging with it. With Ian Paisley’s death the younger generation had no investment in the process and sought to overturn it asap.
As we approach ‘Marching Season’ I would fully expect to see further rioting in NI and escalation if this matter is not fully resolved (in the DUP’s favour) It would take a magician to resolve this without the ‘Loyalists’ returning to violence now. Perhaps Biden needs to enter into this more forcefully than the ‘persuasive techniques’ he hopes to employ at the G7.
Ultimately the government could be forced to send the army back in. Remember what started The Troubles in the first place. It was ‘Loyalist’ terrorists attacking the Catholic civilian population over them wishing to assert their rights to housing and employment (which were far from equal) The army were sent, and remained, a peacekeeping force. The biggest lie told is that the army were at war with the IRA, when the army were sent to protect civilians but then began colluding with the terrorists to kill civilians.
It will be difficult to resolve this due to the utter intransigence of DUP and paramilitaries. The government can only do what it has signed up to do with the EU. Otherwise they will never be rid of the terrorists telling them what to do.