The British government is poised to press ahead with legislation that would override key parts of the Brexit divorce agreement that covers trading rules for Northern Ireland.
The UK’s secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Brandon Lewis, is due to brief business and industry groups in Belfast on Thursday about the proposed legislation, suggesting that London is likely to publish the controversial legislation either on Wednesday or Thursday.
In a move that will further escalate tensions with the European Union, the UK government is preparing legislation that would aim to create “a dual regulatory regime” that the British government says will remove the need for checks and paperwork on goods entering Northern Ireland.
Last month the UK flagged its intention to introduce the legislation that would “fix” parts of the Northern Ireland protocol, part of the EU-UK divorce deal, in an effort to remove the checks and reduce the administrative burden on goods moving from Britain into Northern Ireland.
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The aim of the proposed British legislation is to give UK government ministers powers to allow goods from Britain to circulate freely in Northern Ireland, relying on a system of surveillance on products crossing the Irish Sea into Northern Ireland to prevent the requirement for checks.
The Northern Ireland protocol was agreed by the EU and UK in 2019 to avoid the return of a hard trade border and the requirement for checks at the Irish land border by imposing checks and the requirement for paperwork on goods moving from Britain at Northern Ireland’s ports.
The agreement kept Northern Ireland under EU rules and standards for goods, a position that would be undermined by the UK’s plan to create a dual regulatory system in the North.
Unionists say that the protocol has damaged Northern Ireland’s economy by adding costs and delays with the post-Brexit checks and undermined Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
Asked whether she was willing to risk a potential trade war with the EU over the legislation, British foreign secretary Liz Truss said on Tuesday that the government wanted to create “green lanes” for goods moving into Northern Ireland and a “red lane” for goods bound for the EU.
She said that the move “would protect the EU single market at the same time as enabling goods to flow freely around the UK,” describing it as a “win-win for both the people of Northern Ireland and protecting the EU single market”.
Industry sources in Northern Ireland dismissed the legislation, if passed by the UK parliament, as unworkable, with one saying the dual regulatory regime would be “a disaster”, particularly for the agrifood sector, given the amount of cross-Border dairy and meat processing on the island of Ireland and the UK’s plan to diverge from EU rules and standards over time.
“You cannot produce to two different standards on one farm in Northern Ireland,” said one Northern Irish business figure.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said Europe would respond “in a calm a firm way” to whatever decisions were taken by Britain.
He noted that legislation would need to be enacted as well as introduced, and there would be a “journey through the UK parliament”.
Taking a unilateral approach “will not work”, he said at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday. “I think that would be deeply damaging because it would represent the violation of international agreements. And it really is very difficult to comprehend it … in this day and age to be contemplating that.”
Having met representatives of Northern Ireland firms, “they are very clear that increasingly the protocol is of benefit to their businesses”, the Taoiseach said. Government sources in Dublin said the UK government’s intention to override parts of the protocol agreed would be seen by EU member states as a breach of international law and they would refuse to engage with the UK if the legislation was passed.
One source pointed to the timing of the legislation coming days after more than 40 per cent of Conservative MPs said they no longer had confidence in British prime minister Boris Johnson, suggesting that internal party politics was at play with the imminent publication of the Bill.
“This is a Tory party conversation with itself but the protocol cannot be the price of Boris clinging on or others jockeying for position,” said one source.
Government sources, acknowledging unionist concerns about the protocol, have said that the issues could be resolved with a month of intense negotiations with the EU but that the UK government had not come to the negotiating table since February.
Pippa Hackett, the super-junior minister with responsibility for biodiversity and land use, said the bill as reported was “the conservative party flexing its Brexit muscles, speaking to itself and its own base”. “This is simply not going to wash,” she told RTÉ's Prime Time.
Asked if Ireland would come under pressure to institute a land border, she said one would “be in breach of international laws we have signed up to through the Brexit agreement”. She said the Government’s advice to London was that “instead of showboating, they should get back around the table”.
