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Sam Lowe @SamuelMarcLowe
, 8 tweets, 2 min read Read on Twitter
I've found the backstop to the backstop, fyi.
I think. Just confirming.
So this comes heavily caveated. For it to have gotten to the stage where this kicks in UK would have had to have lost the plot, and it's not clear how this would function in practice. But EU have built in a potential fail safe to guard against UK pulling out of all-UK CU.
Annex 2, Article 6 of NI protocol.

If EU assesses that UK has failed to comply w/ rules governing EU-allUK customs union, and particularly GB element, EU can unilaterally levy tariffs on goods entering its territory. And there's your potential customs border in the Irish sea.
I should say that there is no indication that this is something UK would deliberately trigger. Just reads as an ultimate safeguard against UK deciding to go full pariah state and breach its obligations under an international treaty. And no idea how it would work in practice.
It's mainly there to guard against doing anything silly like, for example, unilaterally deciding to implement the facilitated customs arrangement. Leaves the determination to the EU.
I’ll be honest, this is mainly just me trying to be a clever cloggs. If a customs border were to eventually appear between NI and GB it would be because the UK decided it was a price it is willing to pay for GB being facing fewer constraints.
(The above still being entirely possible via the future economic partnership, by the way, but only if it was something the UK actively decided to do.)
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