The British Government’s NI Protocol Bill passing through Westminster is a controversial piece of legislation that seeks to tear out parts of the NI protocol and override them by using British domestic law and legislation. While that may all be well and good and if you were British and a Brexiteer that maybe what you want to hear, but there are some really quite gigantic snags in what is being billed as a remedy to what has been a thorn in the side of the Uk Government since Brexit was triggered.
The North, NI, Northern Ireland, whatever you wish to call this little state was always going to cause both the UK and the EU problems. One simple reason being, one part of the population claims British citizenship and the other claims Irish citizenship and another claims Northern Irish citizenship, all clearly with their own respective countries of allegiance. The majority of those claiming Irish and Northern Irish citizenship wish for NI to remain in the EU while the minority claiming British citizenship is actually split with some wishing NI to remain in the single market and the EU and some wishing to leave the EU altogether.
Anyone with their head attached firmly to their shoulders with no air getting in can see the advantages of having unrestricted access to both the GB market (as it’s referred to) and the EU single market. Dual access as it’s called. Jamie Bryson has argued that as the North is actually starting to work under the auspices of dual access that it contravenes the Acts of Union in so much as NI is performing better under the protection of the NI Protocol than any other part of the UK while the Acts of Union declare no one part of the UK can outperform any other part. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but we didn’t hear so much as a whisper about this from Jim Allister or JB or indeed Jeffrey Donaldson or Arlene Foster when the North was dwindling well behind every other part of the UK in regard to trade, exports, and foreign direct investment.
You see the problem for Unionism is, that no one really cared about the North of Ireland, financially and economically at least. That is until we started to outperform every other part of the UK thanks to the NI Protocol. When the Protocol was first formulated by Boris Johnson, it was boasted as being able to make NI a literal economic and manufacturing powerhouse. Halfway between the UK and EU, it would have seen the North essentially acting as a melting pot for business, manufacturing, tech, and everything in between. The problem with that for Unionism is, it would make NI work, it would slow our dependence on GB, and allow us to explore the infinitely more attractive and exciting trade opportunities with the EU and that, hidden from view, deep in the thoughts of Jim Allister and Jamie Bryson is the reason they oppose so viciously, the Protocol and celebrate so heartily the British Government’s NI Protocol Bill. They can see the end game far off, they can see the logical conclusion to the NI Protocol working…and that’s a united Ireland.
There’s a small minority in the North who see a problem with the Protocol other than Unionists and even within Unionism, there are those who see its advantages while seeing the obvious disadvantages of the NI Protocol Bill making its way through Westminster. One of those parties which have been traditionally Unionist led is the Ulster Farmers Union, the UFU. David Brown, the head of the UFU stated recently that he was “struggling” to see how the NI Protocol Bill could improve life for farmers in the North, The Dairy Council, which represents dairy farmers, said the bill would jeopardise NI dairy farmers’ £600m annual trade with the South of Ireland and EU, which has been safeguarded by the NI Protocol and represents one-third of sales of milk here. In fact Mr. Brown claimed the introduction of the NI protocol Bill would actually make rural areas poorer rather than protect them.
Yes, there are problems with the Protocol, no one has ever denied that even those who support the Protocol but those same concerned parties see the way forward as being through negotiation and partnership rather than the hard line taken by the British Government buoyed on by Northern Irish Unionism. A stance that has soured and damaged relationships between the UK and the EU and more importantly, the UK and Ireland which in turn has made negotiations more difficult. The EU has given away hand after hand in a bid to push negotiations on to come to an agreement with EU insider sources saying negotiators for the EU came away from negotiations shaking with frustration and anger at not simply the lack of effort on the part of the UK Government but at how they were treated by the same. For instance, the deal on medicines was made so patients in NI would have access to medicines that wouldn’t have been available had a deal not been done. indeed that the EU allowed the North to have dual access at all was unprecedented. It also seems those voices in support of the NI Protocol do not get enough air time, in fact often ignored with the voices against the Protocol hoovering up the media attention on every page, airwave, and pixel on a screen.
In the end, Northern Irish Unionism, by which Brexit itself was engineered and the British Government are endangering the dual access we have enjoyed and continue to enjoy. The majority in the North voted to remain in the EU and that vote was ignored by those who should have taken note. That everything in the North is being held up by this minority is a disgusting thought when it was those same people who ignored our vote, campaigned for the hardest Brexit, undermined our vote, and now leave us in this predicament as a consequence. It just shows, that even if the entirety of NI voted to remain we would still be torn out of the EU against our will and that shows just how much our voices matter in the UK…contrary to what Unionists say or think.
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