Reply to: NI protocol Article 16

[AtW]

Crazy Toad -

"The agreement was "not working" and NI businesses and families were suffering too much "disruption and interference". "

'''Pandora'''s Box''' opened over UK-EU vaccine row, says Gove - BBC News

Well you agreed to that!

[AtW]

Not agreeing will be viewed by Biden and EU as breach of the agreement.

[Lance]

Sorry, what I meant to say, and got sidetracked, was that the NI Devolution settlement allows for such a referendum to take place without further recourse to Westminster. They are restricted to only holding such a referendum once in a generation, qualified in the settlement as being 'no more than once in seven years'. Seriously.....

There was an interesting prog on r4 last week.
They seemed to think that the NI secretary, a cabinet minister, needs to agree to it. But not parliament nor the PM.
In reality I think it will need the PM though as the cabinet is full of loyal toadies.

IANACLE

[AtW]

They are restricted to only holding such a referendum once in a generation, qualified in the settlement as being 'no more than once in seven years'. Seriously.....

Ah so there is a relevant written precendent for defining how long a generation is for the purposes of holding such referendums

[TestMangler]

errr......tl;dr?

or do you think a referendum where the result is for NI to stay in the UK is going to do anything other cause a (un)civil war?

Sorry, what I meant to say, and got sidetracked, was that the NI Devolution settlement allows for such a referendum to take place without further recourse to Westminster. They are restricted to only holding such a referendum once in a generation, qualified in the settlement as being 'no more than once in seven years'. Seriously.....

[AtW]

If (when) Scotland goes then so will NI.

[NotAllThere]

I'm going to d, with eviidence fabricated to look like the EU is funding the UVF. And probably the IRA.

[Lance]

<<<<<snip
Those options are:


a UK asks to rejoin Custom Union and the Single Market as third country
b UK asks to rejoin EU as Member State
c Northern Ireland rejoins EU through reunification with Republic
d Hard border, threat to GFA, risk of civil conflict

There's always the option of an Irish reunification referendum.

errr......tl;dr?

or do you think a referendum where the result is for NI to stay in the UK is going to do anything other cause a (un)civil war?

[TestMangler]

There's always the option of an Irish reunification referendum.

[darmstadt]

Just to stir the waters, an academic (obviously not me) writes:

Gove's letter to the European Commission about NI Protocol is deeply insulting, a worthy successor to Trump's truth-twisting method of treating international diplomacy with the same contempt & dishonesty as domestic politics. But cut through the propaganda & what do we learn? Brexit was always going to cause serious problems for NI, as both UK parliamentary committees and myriad experts predicted. But Tories and DUP simply lied their way through the entire withdrawal process / negotiations by claiming those problems didn't exist and they had easy solutions.


When reality finally hit home, i.e. Tory Hard Brexit threatened a hard border & therefore the GFA, May sought to minimise the damage. But ERG, DUP et. al. did everything they could to destroy her solution. Then PM Johnson stabbed DUP in back by imposing his chosen alternative: the current Protocol.


Was it crystal clear since initial publication of Protocol in Oct 2019? It is inherent in the arrangements Johnson proposed and agreed to, that NI would be legally and economically segregated from the rest of UK. That was price to be paid for Tory Hard Brexit & Johnson happily paid it.


But having dumped DUP and sacrificed NI to "get Brexit done", UK Government has since done everything they can (a) to deny that any of the problems affecting NI are their direct responsibility and (b) to undo their own Protocol by trying to undermine its operation and to unpick its core rules. E.g. repeated public lies about Irish Sea checks. E.g. publishing late and half-baked implementation plans. E.g. refusing EU permission to maintain presence in Belfast. But most of all: explicit and conscious threats to breach legally binding obligations under the Protocol.


For many, such behaviour provided reasonable evidence that Johnson signed Protocol in bad faith, with no intention of ever properly respecting it, just biding time for an excuse to reopen talks & revert to previous fantasies about "alternative arrangements", otherwise know as 'blah blah blah'


So, when the Commission & UK Gov reached an agreement in December 2020 to adjust Protocol and drop Johnson's threats to breach it, some naive souls thought it was genuine but others argued it was just another Tory tactic to get an EU-UK trade cooperation agreement done & to avoid a "no deal". Since then, the problems affecting NI have indeed started to materialise. They were not unforeseen. They are not glitches. They were the inevitable and clearly predicted consequences of Johnson's decision to segregate NI from GB in order to deliver Tory's Extremist Brexit.


Against that background, yes, the EU was clumsy & insensitive to propose, albeit quickly retract, idea of "vaccine border". But UK Government and the DUP have clearly seized on this as an opportunity they were waiting for, forget all those Brexit lies, obstacles & threats... Everything is the EU's fault!


Under the guise of blaming the EU for everything Brexit is doing to NI, Gove's letter shows further evidence that the UK Government agreed to arrangements it had no serious & honest intention of ever actually respecting? In any case, the UK is certainly trying to unpick core parts of the Protocol once again.


I'm all for recognising the unique situation of NI & the need for reasonable flexibility in operation of the Protocol. The problem is, that's not what Brexit fanatics really want. They're still living in denial about the inevitable damage their Hard Brexit must to do NI & its relations with GB.


We know the UK Government and the DUP will never accept reality and take responsibility, they'll just continue to lie, obstruct and throw blame. Yet if they don't want the Protocol, they need to tell us what the alternative will be, and there are only 4 options to choose from, no others:


Those options are:


a UK asks to rejoin Custom Union and the Single Market as third country
b UK asks to rejoin EU as Member State
c Northern Ireland rejoins EU through reunification with Republic
d Hard border, threat to GFA, risk of civil conflict


So, Tories / DUP: which one is it?


I always said: NI would be among primary victims of Brexit fanatics. Damage is already bad enough & will soon get worse. What Tory and the DUP cultists have done so far is shameful. But it is beyond unconscionable that they now deliberately aggravate an already dangerous situation

[Whorty]

Ahh, the W.I.'s are convening.
how nice.

Look who's been triggered

[Eirikur]

Ahh, the W.I.'s are convening.
how nice.

Look who has been released from his ban

[BR14]

Ahh, the W.I.'s are convening.
how nice.

[Eirikur]

Gammons even started a petition to trigger art 16
Trigger Article 16. We want unfettered GB-NI Trade. - Petitions

[AtW]

"We will do everything we need to do... to ensure there is no barrier down the Irish Sea," the prime minister says."