Some thoughts on the Government's new Irish Protocol proposals. Not on the complexities or technicalities, but on the attempt to adopt a principled approach. 1/
First, there is the democracy principle, reflected in the need for Stormont to sign off on regulatory alignment, and to renew those vows every four years. Second, the sovereignty principle applied to customs: a sovereign country must have its own customs union.
Those principles sound good, but closer scrutiny ofthe proposals show that they are instrumentalised in a wholly unconvincing way. 3/
First, democracy. It's a completely partial version. NI does NOT get any say in the overall Brexit outcome, or the overall regime of the Irish Protocol. All it gets a say on is regulatory alignment. Perhaps NI would like a customs union? And what would Scotland like? 4/
Second, NI as part of the UK customs union. There is nothing in international trade law which requires the UK to be a single customs territory. Many examples worldwide of separate customs territories. Some of them are WTO members (e.g. Hong Kong). 5/
Concern about a border in the Irish Sea also doesn't justify this. Regulatory alignment of NI already creates such a border, and is much more intrusive than customs (particularly in light of the FTA objective). 6/
Brexiteers are mostly complaining about "vassalage". Regulatory alignment has always been their target, so why would they accept that for NI, and not accept that NI remains in the EU customs union? 7/
What I think may underpin the refusal to accept a separate NI customs territory is the one big Brexit prize which Brexiteers keep on craving for: the UK making its own trade deals. 8/
But that is, frankly, the great Brexit illusion. The livelihoods and lives of people in NI should not be sacrificed for this, and it is not an illusion to think that this proposal leads to a hard economic border (and probably a physical one). END
