Completely wrong, by @danielmgmoylan. You can argue about whether the EU should have an *office* in Belfast. But its *role* is, absolutely, defined in the WA.
See Article 12(2),(4) and (5) of the (Johnson-negotiated) Protocol. 
A bit of fronting up, by Govt outriders such as Moylan, to what their Govt actually agreed and described as a triumph, and some realism about what needs to be done to implement what it has been agreed, would be a welcome development.
Once you have fronted up to what has actually been agreed, you can then look with a rather more rational perspective at the detail of whether the EU’s officials (who will have a real job to do) should have a base in Belfast or should have to drive over from Drogheda.
Also worth noting this question from Moylan - which again fails to front up to the fact that *even after transition* A10 of the (Johnson negotiated) Protocol will mean that the UK will still have to get Commission approval for Covid 19 related State aid.
As I explain here. prospectmagazine.co.uk/economics-and-…
My note of irritation is explicable by the complete failure of those who take Moylan’s line on these things - not just him - to deal with the provisions of the Protocol with any frankness about what they contain.
Those provisions are in many respects deeply unsatisfactory. For example, Art 10 will bedevil any sensible attempt to construct a new anti-subsidy regime in the UK. The Vat provisions will make it hard to depart from EU Vat law without creating major problems in NI. And so on.
As the HoL EU Committee said (including some pretty die hard Brexiters), Art 10 needs to be renegotiated.
I can see that fronting up to these provisions will also mean fronting up to the reality that the negotiations with the EU will be more complex than is often pretended, with the the UK being a demandeur in these areas.
That makes even less credible the parallel claims - on which the case against an extension advanced by Moylan and other Govt outriders is based - that the UK isn’t asking for much and so can afford to walk away.
But ignoring the reality of what you have signed up to - even if unwisely and even if you now regret it - is always unwise, as any lawyer will tell you.
PS @danielmgmoylan has clarified what he meant. We all misstate on Twitter on occasion.
But I think there are wider points here (raised in my thread) that it would be good to hear his detailed response to.
