Good piece in FT picking up on a point I’ve been banging on about: the State aid provisions of the NI protocol have a much greater reach than often appreciated. ft.com/content/c606c9…
See
This has real implications for both the merits and the credibility of the UK’s stance on not accepting State aid rules (or equivalent) as part of level playing field commitments accompanying a final deal with the EU.
“Merits”, because it makes it hard to see the logic of having a very different anti-subsidy regime in the UK as promised by the Conservative Party: as the EU State aid will also apply to many UK measures, you end up with two different anti-subsidy regimes.
To have one anti-subsidy regime may be necessary, to have two different ones looks like carelessness.
As to credibility, the fact that Johnson has already agreed to this, combined with the merits point above, inevitably raises a question about whether he is really wedded to the “no State aid commitments” line he is currently running.
