Sort out the GB/Northern Ireland trade

It is wrong that many GB businesses now find they cannot send their goods to willing buyers in Northern Ireland without a large amount of extra paperwork or even EU inspired bans. Both sides to the UK/EU Agreement opposed a hard  border on the island of Ireland. Both wished to protect the EU single market and the UK internal market, and allow NI easy access to both. That is what the Protocol says.

The EU has decided to use the Protocol to create a hard border in Northern Ireland against Great Britain. This border is not in the Irish Sea but is enforced against containers, vans and trucks on arrival in Northern Ireland. The EU seems to think a North-south border has to be open but an east-west  border needs to be tightly controlled by them. They should try reading the Good Friday Agreement which is about looking after the interests of both the Protestant and the Catholic communities in Northern Ireland. This heavy handed  approach by the EU violates the Good Friday Agreement as far as the loyalist community in Northern Ireland is concerned.

Lord Frost’s recent article is right in tone and content. He now needs to be careful in negotiations not to allow the EU to insert its controls in the way of GB/Northern Ireland trade. That trade should be regulated and policed by the UK and NI authorities. Of course they should make sure people are  not using easy access to NI to then send things onto the Republic which are not EU compliant. There is no evidence this is happening. The UK authorities have every interest in not allowing that. There is no need to submit trucks taking supermarket produce from GB to named stores in Northern Ireland to special checks in case they were planning to go on to the Republic, because they are not. In an age of computer manifests, truck tracking, pre filed journey and stock schedules trade should be allowed to flow. Any checks or audits that are needed in NI should be for the UK to carry out, and any needed in the Republic for the EU. There have been smuggling problems on the UK/Republic border during our time in  the EU which were always sorted out by co-operation from each side whilst respecting the different jurisdictions. .

Either the EU agrees sensible mutual enforcement with each jurisdiction taking responsibility on its own territory or the UK must simply impose that on the UK side. It is the best and most practical way of implementing the stated aims of the Protocol.

 

233 Comments

  1. Mark B
    May 18, 2021

    Good morning.

    Why is the UK ‘negotiating’ with the EU over UK Sovereign territory ? Would the any other country humiliate itself and do as such ? I doubt it !

    The solution is simple. If the UK Government cannot restore sense to this matter it is time that it slashed corporation Tax for business with profits of over £50 million to just 5%. The RoI has enjoyed very generous tax advantages and I see no reason that this should be allowed to continue. Take their business from them and hit them where it hurts most – their pockets !

    1. Lengy
      May 18, 2021

      Why? Because the UK AGREED to carve up its own territory, it’s all there in the Withdrawal Agreement. Shaming that Brexiters won’t accept responsibility for what they agreed. Sad! Cowardly!

      1. Lifelogic
        May 18, 2021

        I would not have agreed to this but I understand why Boris’s team felt they had to. The main blame lies with the remoaners, Cameron, May, the appalling Bercow and the many Benn Act Traitors in parliament including the speaker referee now a Labour & Kahn supporter. These people left an appalling mess behind them. Cameron and government did not even plan for a leave result, an act of gross negligence and then abandoned ship like a petulant child. Many military leaders have been shot for far less. Then he got his begging bowl out for Greensill.

        The appalling Theresa May had her “leave mean leave in name only” attempted con trick against the voters.

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 18, 2021

          I am genuinely puzzled why Boris Johnson signed us up to this disastrous deal. I was less puzzled about Theresa May trying to keep the whole of the UK under the economic thumb of the EU; as a I recall she actually went along to the CBI to tell her friend Carolyn Fairbairn about her plan before she told her own MPs about it, and the absurd extreme and intransigent attitude of the Irish government and the EU over the land border clearly provided her with a pretext to give the CBI and other business lobby groups most of what they wanted. She even boasted about her negotiating triumph in getting the EU to agree to keep control of the whole of the UK rather than just Northern Ireland … but I cannot fathom Boris Johnson’s motivation, unless it really was that he had banged on for so long about getting a “Canada style free trade deal” with the EU that he was prepared to sacrifice Northern Ireland to get it, even though for the UK economy its overall effects will lie somewhere on the scale from “worthless” to “marginally beneficial”.

          1. Timaction
            May 18, 2021

            Indeed. Why on earth can there not be a simple form/declaration on those items of goods trade destined for the Northern Ireland market only, that has nothing to do with the EU whatsoever? Any items for onward transport should have the required paperwork. If the EU is still intransigent and wants to bully the UK. Then pull the plug on the protocol, full stop. It’s very obvious despite the “my friends” language that they intend us harm. Our Government should in private tell them where to go and revert to WTO.

        2. Alan Jutson
          May 18, 2021

          Lifelogic

          Oh So True.

          Now is the time to make a stand, the EU have proved they cannot be trusted with sensible compliance.
          I have no problem with paperwork being required for goods entering the Republic of Ireland, but to request EU paperwork for goods which are going to Northern Ireland, and Northern Ireland only from the UK mainland, when there is no intention of them going elsewhere is utter madness.
          You may as well use the same argument for goods going from London to Liverpool needing extensive paperwork, just in case they then, just by chance end up in the Republic.

          If the EU are frightened of goods entering the Republic, let them put the checks in the Republic.

        3. jerry
          May 18, 2021

          @LL; Your usual fall guys then!… Except Boris did not have to agree anything, why didn’t he simply walk, the UK leave on WTO rules?

          1. Lifelogic
            May 18, 2021

            I wish he had done that. That would have been my approach.

          2. glen cullen
            May 18, 2021

            Yes

        4. NickC
          May 18, 2021

          Lifelogic, At the frantic behest of Remain (including Martin, Andy, PvL, etc, on here) the UK would have remained an associate member of the EU. Boris Johnson only partly stopped that. What continuity Remain will never admit is that we voted for the UK to leave the EU. Not partly leave; and not part of the UK to leave; but the entire UK to entirely Leave the EU. That’s what the electorate was offered, and that is therefore what we voted for.

        5. Fedupsoutherner
          May 18, 2021

          Quite right L/L. The way some of our ministers behaved during this process was disgusting. A kick in the teeth for democracy and up yours to the voters. What always bugged me was Mrs May was supposed to be a practicing Christian!! Yeah, right.

          1. Lifelogic
            May 18, 2021

            And now she has also fallen for the new and totally insane CO2 devil gas religion too!

          2. Timaction
            May 18, 2021

            Indeed. We all remember the Chequers ambush with disgust. Why is she still a Tory MP after her treachery?

      2. Robert McDonald
        May 18, 2021

        What typical remainer cant. The agreement was supposed to be by two sides wishing to work harmoniously to smooth out the anticipated bumps and hollows of the termination of a close partnership. The UK has tried to be reasonable, as we always do, but the eurocracy has been typically aggressive, self serving and obstructive. The EU will lose out as the world is watching and notes that the EU cannot be trusted and will never make a good partner.

        1. NickC
          May 18, 2021

          Robert, There is no need for the NIP. Legitimate trade is already tracked and traced. So no hard border is required between the UK (Northern Ireland) and the EU (Eire) – for legitimate trade. Smuggling is of course not tracked and traced, but is already illegal.

        2. jerry
          May 18, 2021

          @Robert McDonald; Well you can’t blame then for gloating, many on the Remain side did expect such problems should the UK choose to leave, not that is any excuse for the EU’s belligerence (if it had not been the Irish boarder something else would have been found), but it does kind of show up the naivety of some Brexiteers. But then there was no stomach for a WTO exit either.

      3. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        Absolutely correct, Lengy.

        There’s a simple solution.

        Join the Customs Union.

        “But then there would have been no point to brexit”

        Also absolutely correct – there never was, quite the opposite.

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 18, 2021

          That is not a solution, as Oxford Professor Kevin O’Rourke explained a long time ago.

          https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2017/12/06/comments-to-this-site/#comment-905832

          Round and round we go, same old arguments, the blame rests largely with the government.

      4. X-Tory
        May 18, 2021

        Do you not realise how stupid it is to blame Brexiteers for the failings and betrayals of the government? It is like blaming a football team’s supporters for the mistaken team selection and tactics of the manager! We have NO control over the cowardly and treacherous Boris Johnson, or any other member of the Cabinet. We are just as disgusted at the NI Protocol as anybody else!

        Every Brexiteer that I have ever spoken to believes that we should simply tear up the Protocol and treat NI just like any other part of the country. Indeed, this is what we voted for, as it is implicit in ‘Taking Back Control’ that WE have full control over the whole of our country. No, you must accept that the fault lies with Boris Johnson and the rest of the cabinet, NOT with Brexiteers in general.

      5. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        No, Lengy, I won’t accept responsibility for a Remain outcome. I voted for the entire UK to Leave, not to have part of the UK remain in the EU. Indeed, that wasn’t even offered at the Referendum.

    2. jerry
      May 18, 2021

      @Mark B; At best all slashing UK Corporation Tax to 5% will do is simply cut the our own nose off to spite someone else. If you think international companies are going to (re)locate from ROI to the UK you are seriously deluded, yes such companies chose the ROI over another EU member country because of low Corporation Tax but barrier free access to the rest of the EU was a prerequisite – something the UK can no longer offer.

      1. NickC
        May 18, 2021

        Jerry, You may have missed it but the UK and EU agreed a trade deal to remove those barriers. Yes, UK exporters to the EU must comply with EU rules (as UK exporters to the USA must comply with USA rules), but contrary to Andy’s claims, when we were a subject state of the EU, UK exporters still had to comply with EU rules. Being part of the EU was not a free pass to ignore the EU’s rules. So, as far as EU rules are concerned, UK exporters to the EU are in no different a position. So no new barriers.

        1. jerry
          May 18, 2021

          @NickC; You might have missed it, things are far from being all sweet and roses, trade is not flowing as it should between any part of the EU and GB or NI, it is not just the NIP, the WA more generally has problems too. Who is going to relocate their business to a non EU member state were a post Brexit dispute is brewing with the EU – what if one party decides to use the Break clause in the WA, or even just take the dispute to the WTO for arbitration.

          I have no problem with using corporation tax breaks etc. to attract non EU business to the UK, we do need to be looking towards import/export trade with RotW companies that are not tied to direct trade with the EU – as was the case before we joined the EEC.

          1. NickC
            May 19, 2021

            No, Jerry, I’ve not missed the fact that trade, especially within the UK single market, is not flowing smoothly thanks to the EU. I have written about it numerous times. My solutions have not included anything about corporation tax.

            Instead I have advocated WTO trade with the EU. You yourself have previously suggested the TIR system would work, and Denis Cooper has suggested licencing traders for the specific Eire/UK border. Modern (legitimate) trade is in any case fully documented – the EU could simply be allowed access to those documents as well. So there is no need for a hard border, or for the NIP.

          2. jerry
            May 19, 2021

            @NickC; The point of debate is the idea, made by Mark B, that the UK could use our Corporation Tax rates to “Take [Eire’s] business from them and hit them where it hurts most”, not what you or I consider solutions.

            Any company who set up a treading division in Eire did so because of low Corporation Tax and/or Eire’s membership of the EU single market, if such a company wanted to use WTO and TIR rules to trade with the EU block there are all number of other countries that could have been as beneficial with regards taxation rates (or perhaps labour costs) – assuming the company had any reason to set up a remote trading division in Europe or elsewhere. As I said, why would any company move from Eire to the UK, in the midst of a post Brexit trade dispute, to use WTO and TIR rules that they could use from many other non EU single market countries, minus any ‘baggage’.

            Anyone, of independent thought, in the UK understand there is no legitimate reason for the NIP, knows that it is being used by both the EU and Irish Nationalist to further other agendas.

    3. graham1946
      May 18, 2021

      Sounds like a good idea, but it will not work. What we will get is not international companies re-locating to the UK but office addresses with brass plates on the door and a big drop in the tax take. The maths to do something like that do not work. Some big companies (will not name them in case JR gets twitchy) but we know them, who sell billions of pounds worth of goods in the UK and send their profits through the Republic and other places by sleight of hand accounting. It is of course legal but our government is wrong in allowing this to happen, especially with internet companies who pay virtually nothing to the UK exchequer (and before the usual suspects say what about income tax and NIC for employees, that is employees money, earned here, not the corporations). We must find ways to tax them and it is no good our government saying wait until the rest of the world does it, it won’t happen. They won’t suddenly stop selling in the UK but it may increase prices a bit, thereby letting ‘legitimate’ UK businesses compete fairly.

    4. a-tracy
      May 18, 2021

      MarkB – why you ask?
      1. A big error by Boris/Frost’s Team to get their plan over the line
      2. Pressure from the USA Irish lobby
      3. No anti-competitive measures like this against the EU for one year whilst accepting their measures in a month. It needs to be more harmonious, apply the same terms to the EU imports that they apply to our exports on all the items we need to send to N Ireland.
      4. Tell the public exactly what products we have to provide paperwork for that are being held up then sit back until the new year when all the same restrictions will be applied to the EU to bring them back to the table.

      1. John Hatfield
        May 18, 2021

        It wasn’t Frost. Johnson and Gove pushed Frost aside at the last minute to capitulate to the EU’s demands.
        To the best of my recollection.

  2. DOM
    May 18, 2021

    Those who accept the legitimacy of the protocol must also accept that the inevitable conclusion of such an
    arrangement is a United Ireland for that is the aim of both parties, the dissolution of the UK.

    The protocol does not concern with trade flows though this is is stated aim. It is a mere instrument of destroying one nation and expanding the power of another. This is precisely what Blair intended when he embraced devolution

    Since 2010 the Tory party has also entered into Blair’s strategy of destroying the UK by refusing to roll back any of Blair’s arrangements. Indeed the Tory party has built upon such a program of devolving responsibility and thereby diverting blame away from themselves, which is their main aim

    There is not one single politician who now believes in the sanctity of the United Kingdom. It is slowly being ripped apart limb from limb. Northern Ireland dumped by Johnson. Scotland hived off to extremists and Nationalists in Edinburgh by Labour. Wales? A Socialist shithole with the energy of a sloth typified public sector lethargy

    The UK won’t exist by 2040 and all incumbent parties and their MPs are too blame irrespective of their public protestations

    1. Everhopeful
      May 18, 2021

      Exactly.
      And they are also responsible for sitting on their hands and allowing parliament to be trashed, this country ripped apart and its citizens turned into quaking zombies.
      Why?
      Why?

      1. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        It is the Right who want Parliament trashed, describing many MPs as “traitors” and its defender the Court as “enemies of the people”?

        Remember – though you perhaps only do that when it suits?

        1. Everhopeful
          May 18, 2021

          Is there any Right within 10 miles of Westminster?

        2. a-tracy
          May 18, 2021

          MiC – do you mean the perceived right-wing newspapers? Or are you targeting every Conservative as ‘the Right’?

          1. a-tracy
            May 19, 2021

            MiC – I was pondering on your ‘describing MPs as traitors’ so I got the definition of traitor from Oxford Languages – ‘a person who betrays someone or something, such as a friend, cause, or principle.
            “he was a traitor to his own class”‘.
            There were MPs that stood on a ticket in 2017 that were thus traitors to the people that elected them. On the other side that agreed with these people you would of course want to defend them because they were fighting the good-as-staying-in BRINO remain intention.

        3. Hugho
          May 18, 2021

          Many remainer MPs were acting against the expressed wishes of the majority of their constituents. Traitor is an appropriate word, the truth hurts.

          1. MiC
            May 19, 2021

            Well, the DUP certainly were, weren’t they?

          2. NickC
            May 19, 2021

            Martin, The Referendum was a national vote. According to the rules that Remain – including Remain MPs – accepted, Leave won. Except Remain MPs effecctively overturned the democratic result (we’ve got BINO, not Leave), trashing our constitution in the process. Such MPs were therefore traitors to the national Leave decision.

    2. jerry
      May 18, 2021

      @DOM; In some respects I agree with your fourth paragraph, the sanctity of the United Kingdom, but rather than be abusive and use course language perhaps you should spend a little more time pondering why we have arrived at were we are, might it have something to with the under regulated free-market economic “shithole” we have become, along with having the energy of a sloth compared to our past, (typified by the private sector lethargy these days, were nothing can be done or put to market until they or their outsources, the latter often in China, decide [1]), people want better, perhaps Nationalists see independence as the only way to get it?

      [1] the pandemic has certainly shown the fallacy of off-shoring

      1. a-tracy
        May 18, 2021

        jerry, do you honestly believe that the whole of the UK ‘private sector lethargy’ statement is true? Including the likes of Rolls Royce, Radwell, Warburtons, Knorr-Bremise, JCB, KUKA UK, CNC Robotics, Air Movement Supplies, Excell Metal Spinning just a few of the UK businesses I read about today making advances.

        1. jerry
          May 19, 2021

          @a-tracy; Of course there are exceptions, but for most of the companies you cite a majority of UK voters will have no meaningful direct or even indirect involvement with, and such people’s choices at the ballot box decide the future of the UK, not just those who read the FT…

          Nor is it all about business innovation, the SNP gained traction because a majority of Scott’s wanted free (at the point of need) Prescriptions, wanted free Higher Education tuition for their children etc, and yes they do understand where “Free” comes from, their taxes.

          A better baked loaf of breed, an excavator that can work more efficiently, or Rolls Royce wanting to develop a new era of nuclear reactors, all are great news to those who take a close interest in such matters, but most people will judge the UK’s economic and energy polices etc. only when the shelves are bare and/or the lights go out, just as they did our industrial relations polices in the 1970s; until then we are all individually -to the point of being selfish- far more concerned about the price, availability and quality of pretty specific items within the retail sector, can we get that new ‘widget’ or not, and use that to judge the decency of our lives and country – just as some are judging the current govt on the ability, or not, of visiting Pubs, Gyms or being allowed to fly abroad without hindrance.

    3. Glenn Vaughan
      May 18, 2021

      Dom/Dominic/Duncan (he’s used them all)

      If Wales is a “Socialist shithole…” as you derisively claim then your shithead manner and attitude should feel comfortable within its boundaries! UGH!

    4. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      As indicated below:

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/18/sort-out-the-gb-northern-ireland-trade/#comment-1229788

      the shame lies with the so-called “Conservative and Unionist” MPs.

    5. Fedupsoutherner
      May 18, 2021

      Too true Dom. We have been fed to the lions.

  3. agricola
    May 18, 2021

    I will get round to the NI Protocol later.

    I have been trying for the lasf 15 minutes to sign in to the NHS website so that I can prove that I have had two covid jabs. The website was designed by Kafka. A more complex piece of bureaucratic crap it would be hard to find. You travel from email address to password to OTP to a photo of your passport to what might be the fjnal stage, a selfie or a selfie video. It fails to confirm or otherwise whether either has worked and you end up in an electronic cul de sac where the only option is to go back and start again. A small flag appears suggesting that facebook might have responsibility for this unmitivated shambles.

    Pause for a moment and consider yourself in a passport queue in some foreign land having to prove your immunity from covid. Littlejohn will have a field day with this one. Get on the phone to Hancock and tell him to get it sorted quicktime.

    1. SM
      May 18, 2021

      Dear Agricola, in my experience each new bit or update of electronic technology is designed and introduced by those who assume that every user/consumer has 20/20 eyesight, an instinctive comprehension of new as well as old arcane symbols, and a Master’s Degree in finding your way out of a maze while blindfolded.

      Having successfully managed my Premium Bond account online for many years, I eventually closed it 3 months ago – after new security measures were introduced, I was repeatedly forbidden access. It only took about a dozen telephone calls from S Africa to England to accomplish closure.

    2. Everhopeful
      May 18, 2021

      Yesterday someone told me that their son had all the symptoms of covid ( except fever) and wanted to get the “test” so duly went online.
      Was not allowed a test without a heightened temperature so had to lie to get one.
      Tested “positive”.
      It is all a shambles…agreed.

      1. Everhopeful
        May 18, 2021

        Oh yes…and imagine when we are forced to use the internet for everything ( almost there!)and nothing works!
        Shut in our houses and no way of interacting with the outside world.
        Increasingly websites are non working and weird.
        And the AI “customer service” …..well!

        1. Fedupsoutherner
          May 18, 2021

          Everhopeful. Don’t forget, shut in our cold houses and unable to communicate with the rest of the world due to poor internet connections. We do not live in the sticks and yet our internet is always crashing and is slow.

          1. Everhopeful
            May 18, 2021

            +1
            Yes..ours is very poor too.

    3. David Magauran
      May 18, 2021

      I am having exactly the same problems now.

    4. hefner
      May 18, 2021

      Simples: like Beethoven’s Pastorale, a symphony in five movements …
      1/ One opens their ‘NHS app’ on their phone (please note not the ‘NHS Test and Trace app’). That’s the one enabling one to book an appointment or renew a prescription;
      2/ Put their email address and password;
      3/ Then on new page click on relevant choice: code by SMS or email (that’s to protect access to one’s data);
      4/ Once this code has been received (about 30 seconds) add it to the NHS app;
      5/ Then open ‘proof of Covid-19 vaccines’.

      Et voila, about three minutes for anybody able to handle a mobile phone.
      Guess Littlejohn will be able to do that.

      1. SM
        May 18, 2021

        Hefner, you are assuming that ‘one’ can afford to buy a smart phone in the first place, and then that ‘one’ can get one’s head around touching the correct symbols (one might have bad arthritis), ditto for entering script, etc etc, then that ‘one’ knows how to add this to another app …

      2. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Hefner, Once I got past your mangled English (“one” and “their”), it becomes apparent that you think computers and mobiles (or the programs on them) work as supposed, first time, for everyone. Only in Hollywood films. And that’s for people with mobiles capable of downloading NHS apps.

        But what do you want proof of vaccination for? Those vaccinated are “safe” anyway. Except they can still catch covid and transmit it to others (apparently). So neither the vaccines nor any paper or mobile “proof” can stop the spread.

    5. agricola
      May 18, 2021

      After breakfast I managed to get through the photographiic and video stage of signing on to the NHS App. There is a question mark about whether it worked or not which ths NHS are sorting out manually. It will take 7 plus days for them to confirm. There is absolutely no indication as to how the vaccination passport is accessed or whether it in fact exists.

      1. Mark
        May 18, 2021

        Why can’t they simply mail a piece of cardboard with the details? A scannable code could be machine read at the border, and the rest of us can read the plain print. I’ll bet that making it phone based offers no more security in practice, will frustrate those who find their phones discharge while waiting for health control, fail to connect at a foreign airport, etc.

        If their are grounds for suspicion of fraud then the recourse is to test for antibodies, or to use a combination of verification of identity and a database lookup provided via the NHS. When I went for my second jab my record of my first was identified by virtue of name, date of birth and my letter of appointment number.

        We simply need agreements with other countries on the provision of similar arrangements.

    6. Alan Jutson
      May 18, 2021

      Not really a surprise Agricola is it.

      Just one of the many reasons we are not planning to go abroad this year, but we have a choice, business visitors do not, why not use the simple stickers that everyone got given at the vaccine centres. Yes I know they are probably easily forged but an official stamp would have resolved that, and I assume there is an electronic list of all who have had the Jab held somewhere which can be accessed for checking !.

      As usual if there is a complicated way to do anything Politicians will find it.
      Just one of the reasons why any project that involves National or Local Government is expensive.

      1. agricola
        May 18, 2021

        I would be amazed if the Guardia Civil or the Policia National would be impressed with that sticker currently on my wallet or the card dating the two vaccinations and the drug used, currently paper clipped to the cover of my passport. Had the Health Ministry had the forsight to issue a paper certificate, suitably rubber stamped or bar coded at the time of the second jab, all would be well. The EU are reported to be dropping the test requirement before travel and replacing it with proof of jab. I await the NHS administration getting it online within 7 days. Happy days.

      2. Sea_Warrior
        May 18, 2021

        To its credit, the government has put in place an alternative for those unable to use the NHS App, to show proof of vaccination. Letters will be provided, on request to 119. Earlier today, the FCO travel advice page for Greece showed that that country will accept letters as adequate proof. Obviously, the government will need to get other countries to play ball.
        P.S. I’m one of the few luddites in this country not owning either a ‘smartphone’ or a tablet modern enough to support the app. I would have resented having to spend ca. £100.
        P.S.2 I won’t be travelling abroad until the pre-departure test requirement is removed. I have no desire to be stranded.

    7. Margaret Brandreth-
      May 18, 2021

      As an NHS worker I had both my vaccinations from surplus . I was also concerned that there was valid documentation and have recently written to my own GP practice for the information to be included in my medical notes. This seems a more solid way of documentation . Those who my own practice has invited for vaccines automatically get a recorded entry in the journal which is an ongoing record of medical interventions.

  4. Lengy
    May 18, 2021

    Have you even read Article 5 of the Protocol? It says all of the EU customs code applies to NI (but not to GB). The Protocol also requires that EU rules on goods and food apply in NI (but not in GB). So trade in goods between GB and NI has the same blockages and checks as trade between GB and Holland. That, Mr Redwood, is the whole point of the Protocol – and you voted for it in Parliament, it is Boris’s oven ready deal!

    Reply Read on. It is merely seeking to prevent non compliant goods getting into the EU

    1. Lengy
      May 18, 2021

      Yes! And the prevention occurs at the NI – GB border under the Protocol. You agreed to it!

      1. Robert McDonald
        May 18, 2021

        Yet again a remainer misses the point. The protocol was to stop non compliant goods getting to the EU, SI, not non compliant goods getting to the UK, NI. Its time the UK stood up and said no more to the bigoted eurocracys bureaucracy.

      2. NickC
        May 18, 2021

        No, Lengy, I did not agree to it. The only time I was allowed a vote (in the 2016 Referendum) I voted for the entire UK to Leave, not to agree a division of the UK where part of the UK remains in the EU. Normal legitimate trade can be checked by the normal paperwork (on computers!) associated with modern trade all over the world. There is no need for a “hard” border. Nor for the NIP.

      3. X-Tory
        May 18, 2021

        No! The controls need only apply to those goods “at risk” of going to the EU/Republic. The Protocol does NOT stipulate HOW these goods are to be identified, or what checks should be done.

        So we could simply adopt an ‘honesty box’ system, whereby those companies sending goods through NI to the Republic have to self-declare and provide the necessary paperwork. All other goods move between GB and NI completely unchecked in any way.

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 18, 2021

          Or, we could apply the same approach to goods destined to cross the land border into the Republic when they are actually being sent on their way across the land border into the Republic, not when they are entering Northern Ireland. In other words, we could have a system of export licences for goods which are sent being into the Republic and so into the sacred EU Single Market, and failure to comply with the conditions of the export licence – especially those determined by the relevant EU Single Market rules – could lead to civil and criminal penalties, including suspension or loss of the licence.

    2. Narrow Shoulders
      May 18, 2021

      Trading standards can police that goods are in compliance, there is no need for checks at the border.

  5. Newmania
    May 18, 2021

    Can Sir John ,tell us of any specific factual way, in which the EU are contravening the protocol they and he agreed ? If not the spare us the waffle. This is your fault

    Reply They are preventing the proper functioning of the U.K. internal market contrary to the Agreement

    1. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      It is not the responsibility of the European Union to do the necessary magic to make the UK internal market work while both sides comply with the NIP.

      That’s over to you and your fellow Tory MPs, John.

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        And the only way to make the UK internal market work is to scrap the NIP, Martin. If the EU is so concerned about its own market it should prosecute any EU business that imports non-conforming goods into the EU (something the EU can do already). The integrity of the EU internal market is neither our concern nor our responsibility.

    2. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Newmania, Did you really think the EU was going to be other than hostile, vindictive, intransigent, and vengeful? Because I didn’t. The EU is behaving true to form. Excusing such behaviour does your side no favours.

    3. Newmania
      May 18, 2021

      Neither specific or factual .The agreement refers to “Best endeavours to facilitate “, and “unfettered access”, to the UK for N Ireland .It does not, ( obviously ) say that N Ireland can import from the UK as freely it did before as you seem to be claiming. That would negate the entire protocol, make no sense at all, surely you can see this ?

      .

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Newmania, Northern Ireland does not “import” from the UK, it is part of the UK. Surely you can see this?

  6. agricola
    May 18, 2021

    The NI Protocol is simple, it does not work and is a potential source of political and supply problems within the UK. Tell the EU to cancel it entirely within two weeks or we will completely ignore it. They the EU will have to protect their own virginity in their own territory if they so choose.

    1. Andy
      May 18, 2021

      The NIP is part of a legally binding international treaty – which the party you vote for signed us up to. Rubbish, isn’t it?

      1. jerry
        May 18, 2021

        @Andy; But the EU is not following the NIP, and there are ‘Break clauses’ in the WA -of which the NIP is a part- in anticipation (?!) of such problems, do try to keep up at the back!

      2. NickC
        May 18, 2021

        Part of the UK remaining under EU control was certainly not what I voted for, Andy. It wasn’t even offered – I voted at a national Referendum for the entire UK to Leave the EU entirely. What we have got is what you wanted. It may have escaped your notice, but the UK partly remaining in the EU, or part of the UK remaining in the EU, is a desperate Remain bodge concocted by Remains to cling on to nanny EU’s hand at any cost.

        1. nota#
          May 19, 2021

          @NickC – as did the majority in the Country. We have a Government that doesn’t listen and prefers to fight the People at every turn

      3. a-tracy
        May 18, 2021

        What’s rubbish Andy is that Frost didn’t insist on the same terms for imports from the EU.

    2. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      The NIP was in no way imposed upon the UK.

      It was reached by meticulous agreement, and the party of government in our supreme Parliament voted very convincingly for it.

      However, it appears that few of them could be bothered to enquire as to what was in it and to what would be its effects. Not that there was any willingness to divulge that anyway.

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Martin, False. The NIP is imposed on me, and I am part of the UK. And it has been imposed on me by Remain MPs who would not accept our decision to Leave. As endorsed by you.

  7. Shirley M
    May 18, 2021

    I have read that there are far more checks being demanded by the EU on the GB/NI border, than happens between EU and non-EU borders. Is this true? If so, then EU intentions are perfectly clear.

    Also, how can the EU ban goods to NI that are allowable between UK countries? It appears we no longer have a UK internal market.

    1. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/10/the-will-of-scottish-voters/#comment-1227801

      ““Fifth of all EU border checks happening in Northern Ireland”

      And that is while a huge volume of checks have been unilaterally suspended by the UK government.”

    2. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      Might I remind you, that one of the main reasons for which Leave advocated their position was “to bring an end to arguing about Europe”?

      It’s hilarious – and this is only the beginning. You’re going to hear far, far more about it than you ever did when the UK was a member.

      Enjoy it.

      1. Alan Jutson
        May 18, 2021

        But its not at our insistence, It’s the EU who are requesting all of this nonsense, simply overkill because they are upset we left.
        We should simply abandon checks on anything going, and staying in Northern Ireland, as it has absolutely nothing to do with the EU.

        1. MiC
          May 18, 2021

          It’s got everything to do with the Irish Republic – which is a member of the European Union.

          So it has plenty to do with it.

          1. Denis Cooper
            May 18, 2021

            The Irish Republic has a legitimate interest in the goods which are entering its territory but not in those circulating in the territories of other countries. Or do you suppose that the Irish government – or the EU – should be able to dictate what goods are allowed to circulate in Australia?

      2. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Nobody is arguing about “Europe”, Martin. It is the EU. And the EU is causing unnecessary problems. As usual.

        Martin, Don’t you think it’s funny (in a macabre way) that everything which is going wrong about Brexit is where the EU still has control over us? It’s the Remain bits of BINO that are bad, not the Leave bits.

  8. Peter Wood
    May 18, 2021

    Extract from:
    https://ukandeu.ac.uk/explainers/the-protocol-on-ireland-northern-ireland/

    There is a special resolution procedure for disputes relating to the Protocol. Article 12(4) of the Protocol states that the ECJ has jurisdiction with regards to the provisions with the Protocol relating to customs, technical regulations, VAT, and state aid. The European Commission can bring a direct infringement claim to the ECJ if it believes the UK to be in breach of the Protocol in these areas.

    Failure to comply with the rulings from either process could lead to monetary sanctions being applied. If non-compliance continues, then the complainant party could suspend elements of either the Withdrawal Agreement or the Trade and Cooperation Agreement until the matter is rectified.

    ECJ has jurisdiction. What were the UK government people smoking!? There is no reason for the EU to be reasonable on this issue; they will seek to damage the UK and charge monetary compensation for every imaginable infringement. UK government needs to rethink this and establish a new negotiating position.

    1. J Bush
      May 18, 2021

      I think they were hoping that the masses would be taken in by the ‘Johnson hails free trade with the EU’. That they are as thick and lazy as politicians and wouldn’t notice the huge glaring loopholes that keeps the UK tied to the ECJ etc!

      WTO was always and still is the best deal.

      1. Peter
        May 18, 2021

        ‘WTO was always and still is the best deal.’

        Exactly. Start from scratch.

        However Johnson is not prepared to go to WTO, so this terrible agreement was rushed through our parliament while the EU took its time looking at the detail.

        Lord Frost will be wheeled out to make strong statements that make good headlines, but he will be ignored.

        With a strong majority and Labour in disarray, Johnson will leave the NI protocol, fishing and other difficulties as they stand and hope the public gets used to it.

        1. J Bush
          May 18, 2021

          I suspect their wishes we will get used to it will fall on stony ground, especially for the fishing communities and its associated support suppliers around the country.

          I questioned his “global Britain” and “build back better” etc slogans actually meant and glad gut instinct told me he is not trustworthy and don’t vote for him.

      2. turboterrier
        May 18, 2021

        J Bush
        Correct on WTO. It’s a no brainer.
        The EU are just being bloody minded, petty, vindictive and the politicians are allowing it to happen. Give the EU 1 month to get their a’s into gear or we are out to trade on WTO terms.

      3. Denis Cooper
        May 18, 2021

        That became clear in the late autumn of 2017.

        https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2018/10/14/mrs-may-damages-the-union-she-wants-to-defend/#comment-966438

        Referring to a proposal that had been posted by Kenneth:

        “That is what the UK government should have announced in the autumn of 2017 when it had become clear that the new Irish government was determined to keep the UK, or at the very least Northern Ireland, under the rules of both the EU Customs Union and the EU Single Market in perpetuity, and the EU was prepared to support them on that and in effect allow them to exercise a veto at every stage of the negotiations.”

        The only revision I would make now is to recognise that the EU was the prime mover in the development of the absurd, extreme and intransigent position adopted by the Irish government:

        https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/04/27/the-question-s-over-scottish-independence/#comment-1225090

        “… a former senior Irish diplomat, Rory Montgomery, saying that initially the Irish government had been open to suggestions on how customs checks and controls could be performed without any need for a hard border on the island of Ireland but they “ran into a brick wall” with the EU Commission … “

      4. NickC
        May 18, 2021

        Just so, J Bush. Yet again our negotiators were out manouevred by the EU. In Theresa May’s case, willingly. And whilst Boris Johnson keeps wittering about the EU being our “friends” that will continue.

      5. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        WTO rules would mean – absolutely inescapably – a hard border on the island of Ireland, in complete negation of the GFA.

        You simply don’t care about that though – nor much else – do you?

        1. Denis Cooper
          May 18, 2021

          Once again, somebody who will know better than you does not agree with you.

          https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/13/my-speech-in-response-to-the-queens-speech/#comment-1228813

          “Oddly enough Sir Jonathan Faull would not agree with you that Brexit “absolutely implies something like what we have”. But what would he know about it? He was only a Director General on the EU Commission … ”

          And nor would he agree with you that “WTO rules would mean – absolutely inescapably – a hard border on the island of Ireland”, as you could read here:

          https://verfassungsblog.de/an-offer-the-eu-and-uk-cannot-refuse/

          “This proposal, which includes features which have never been discussed, will guarantee the integrity and autonomy of the EU’s and UK’s respective customs and regulatory territories, and will require neither a Customs Union between the two unless that is the wish of both, nor a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. “

          1. MiC
            May 18, 2021

            Funny how it wasn’t adopted then, isn’t it?

            Did it depend on technology which has not yet been invented by any chance?

          2. Denis Cooper
            May 18, 2021

            What’s “funny” about it, then?

            If you had bothered to read it you could have found out for yourself that it did not depend on technology either invented or uninvented.

            And if you were to read what Shanker Singham explained about digitisation here:

            https://committees.parliament.uk/oralevidence/2064/html/

            you would find that a lot of relevant technology has now been invented:

            “On your question of technological things that are being done, it is true to say that, particularly with respect to SPS issues, there is a lot of digitisation that is possible right now. In fact, many of the supermarkets are using digitised systems and can track literally to the level of the bread roll as it is going from GB to Northern Ireland. There are many entities providing that kind of mechanism. Digitising the process is a really important thing to do. What I would leave with the Committee is that, in my experience, that technology is not off in future; it is stuff that supermarkets are using right now. We should take full advantage of those kinds of things, to the extent that they can make the SPS requirements easier for traders.”

        2. None of the Above
          May 18, 2021

          The GFA does not refer to the Border at all.
          All this nonsense about a threat to peace on the border was just a construct, concocted by the EU and the Republic of Ireland with the unofficial encouragement of the USA.

        3. X-Tory
          May 18, 2021

          Firstly, the Belfast Agreement (it’s the IRA that call it the ‘Good Friday’ Agreement to give it an extra Catholic underpinning) does not even mention the border, let alone stipulate whether it should be hard, soft, flabby, jelly or anything else! Read it yourself and see.

          Secondly, a WTO Brexit would NOT necessitate a ‘hard’ border, as both the UK and Irish governments said during the negotiations. Why should it? Smuggling has for a long time been controlled by cooperative intelligence-led policing, on both sides of the border. There is zero reason why this should not continue under a WTO Brexit.

          1. MiC
            May 18, 2021

            Right, so anyone who wants to come to Britain from the European Union could arrive in Eire, then just drift across that non-existent border into the UK to the North, then equally drift across the border-free sea on a ferry, and here they are.

            It’s a lot easier and safer than dinghies, isn’t it?

          2. NickC
            May 19, 2021

            It is “easier than dinghies”, claims Martin. Yet the illegal migrants aren’t doing it. That’s because you’re wrong, and it’s not that easy.

        4. agricola
          May 18, 2021

          Bare with MiC, he probably hasn’t heard of electronic invoicing and information exchange ,which is surprising as he is a dab hand at exchanging disinformation here every day. He seems to have a nostalgia for Checkpoint Charlie and all the fun that went with it.

          1. MiC
            May 19, 2021

            I’m fully clothed, thanks.

        5. X-Tory
          May 18, 2021

          Every time you post here you just demonstrate your ignorance. It’s so amusing showing you up. You don’t seem to understand that Ireland is not part of the Schengen area, so 3rd world migrants would need to have a visa to enter that country – which they don’t have, and so they can’t. Your suggestion that, without border checks at the Irish sea these migrants could flood into Britain, is therefore as wrong and as stupid as everything else you post. After all, think about it: if they could enter Ireland so easily they would do so now, and pass through the open North/South border and enter Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK. They would then apply for asylum there, which is as good as Dover. But they don’t. Because they can’t. Because you’re WRONG. As always.

        6. anon
          May 25, 2021

          If the EU actually tried to impose its idea of an external border. It would just be another EU fail.
          Eire would have a choice to make , assuming voting matters, and would probably just leave the EU.

          Not our problem either way. Eire voted to join the EU. We voted to leave.

      6. Fedupsoutherner
        May 18, 2021

        Hear, hear to that J Bush.

    2. Len Peel
      May 18, 2021

      Great that you FINALLY wised up to what Boris’s oven ready deal means! Now, time you asked hard questions of the Tory MPs who voted for the Withdrawal Agreement – which is all of them

    3. None of the Above
      May 18, 2021

      Like repealing the ‘EU Withdrawal Agreement Act’? I hope so!

  9. None of the above
    May 18, 2021

    I await with interest and not a little hope, the outcome of the case currently being heard in the High Court in Belfast.
    Pending that, I agree wholeheartedly with your post.

    1. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Perhaps we should join the DUP?

  10. Dave Andrews
    May 18, 2021

    The Conservative party government, which is supposed to be a Unionist party, has betrayed the UK people of Northern Ireland. In fact, it has treated them as expendable.
    I hope the court case the DUP are bringing is successful, and the government puts up a weak defence or preferably none at all. Certainly don’t lodge an appeal against a decision that goes against the NI Protocol. That at least might give them a route out of the mess they have created.

    1. None of the Above
      May 18, 2021

      I don’t think the Government could put up a strong defence, even if they wanted to.

  11. Andy
    May 18, 2021

    I agree. It is totally wrong that businesses in GB can not trade freely with NI.

    But this is what Conservative MPs voted to impose on all of us in January 2020.

    They did so having stood on a manifesto at the 2019 general election promising to ‘get their Brexit done’. The majority of the electorate rejected this but the Tories imposed us on it all anyway.

    These Tory barriers to trade are unacceptable to the majority.

    Incidentally, the outage now is about trade. A bigger outrage in the future will be about rights. Because it turns out that the Tories negotiated MORE rights for the people of NI than for the rest of us. This effectively turns people in England, Scotland and Wales into second class citizens. That’ll go down well in the shires.

    1. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Andy, A majority – of those who could be bothered to vote – voted to Leave the EU entirely. The fact that part of the UK remains under the control of the EU is a remain outcome, not a Leave outcome. The clue is in the word “Remain”.

      1. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        Oh, I wonder what happens if someone from NI gets in the “Citizens Of The European Union” queue at a Continental airport then?

        1. NickC
          May 19, 2021

          Wonder away. Making a law does not mean everyone complies with it, Martin.

  12. Andy
    May 18, 2021

    I enjoyed listening to unelected bureaucrat David Frost give his evidence to his committee of Brexitists sycophants – led by Bill Cash – yesterday.

    I am not sure whether the Brexitists intended Mr Frost to be a comedic figure – but he is certainly good for a laugh. He can not tell us any advantages from the Brexit he negotiated but he is going to hire someone to help him find some.

    Where on Earth did we drag this incompetent goon up from? And how do we get rid of him? Before the public inquiry I mean. That’ll get rid of him.

    1. Richard1
      May 18, 2021

      It remains to be seen whether Brexit will be seen as a success. Here are a few early signs:-

      1. We are no longer paying £12bn pa net, rising for ever to the EU
      2. We have no liability for the EU’s €390bn euro bailout scheme, which would have cost us several £10 bns. (There will be more of these)
      3. We have been able to have an independent vaccine programme and are not part of the EU commission clown show
      4. We are no longer obliged to submit to irrational protectionist EU regs such as those on new technologies in food production, AI etc
      5. We have been able to replicate all – all – of the EU third party trade agreements – you said this would never happen
      6. We have an independent trade policy and can eg join the CPTPP. Again, you said this would never happen, no one would want to trade with ‘little England’. Turns out you were wrong (again)
      7. (this is the funny one – we will try to be magnanimous and not laugh at you in your helpless rage if this turns out to be true) it’s increasingly looking like the U.K. – yes the U.K. which isn’t part of the EU anymore and has a Tory govt – will be the standout economy for in Europe over next couple of years, outperforming the eurozone. The key test of Brexit.
      8. Scottish separatism is finished. There’s no mandate for a new referendum, so there won’t be one. Leaving the U.K. would now be super high risk for Scotland as Scottish voters realise.

    2. Dave Andrews
      May 18, 2021

      Don’t be too hard on poor David Frost, he was put into bat with a blindfold on, a broken bat and his ankles tied together.
      The problem with Brexit isn’t that the EU can’t do a better job of governing the UK than the British politicians, but that the people of the UK can’t vote in people who can do a better job than the EU.

    3. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Well, it’s certainly not comedic that continuity Remain nearly scuppered our democracy and did severely damage our constitution. Every part of what is wrong with the current agreements is where we are still beholden to the EU. It’s rubbish precisely where it is Remain.

    4. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      Unfortunately the High Court ruled that it is not an offence – Misconduct In Public Office – for a Minister knowingly to mislead the public.

      The judiciary are mostly part of the Establishment – the real one, not Farage’s fiction – and there is the proof if anyone needed it.

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Martin, The High Court ruled no such thing. Nor is it a lie to highlight the gross payment to the EU, nor suggest alternatives for spending taxpayers’ money.

  13. Ian Wragg
    May 18, 2021

    We all know it’s an EU ploy to get us to sign up to EU standards on food, agriculture and environment policed by the ECJ.
    No doubt Johnson will ultimately capitulate and that will be the end of any FTAs we negotiate.

    1. turboterrier
      May 18, 2021

      Ian Wragg

      Exactly. Leader in name only. What intrigues me is that the party keep him in post. Sadly he appears not to be improving with his tenure of No10. Not focused enough on the day job. Too many distractions, he has given it his best shot but it is not good enough as more time in post will reveal.

    2. Richard1
      May 18, 2021

      It is. If Boris does cave in then the best policy would just be to join EEA /EFTA. A sort of half Brexit. It might happen.

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 18, 2021

        That would not solve the largely fabricated problem of the Irish land border.

        https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/18/sort-out-the-gb-northern-ireland-trade/#comment-1229829

    3. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      Correct. The ECJ is not being mentioned yet, for example here:

      https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0510/1220805-northern-ireland-protocol/

      but the EU will want to be sure of full enforcement of its rules.

      And when Boris Johnson capitulates there will be a token rebellion among the Tory MPs, which will not have any effect because if necessary a sufficient number of pro-EU opposition MPs will support him.

      I think we might as well use the future tense rather than the conditional.

  14. Richard1
    May 18, 2021

    The NI protocol is clearly very unsatisfactory, but it was all Boris Johnson could get through the remain parliament which passed the surrender act I suppose, and is in any case far better than mrs mays appalling backstop. The EU, unsurprisingly, are trying to use it to recapture the huge control over the U.K. which May and Robbins almost handed to them with the backstop.

    Happily the EU has already established the precedent that article 16 is there to be used. The way the NI protocol is being implemented is a clear breach of the Belfast agreement – a breach of international law. so the message to the EU should be change the protocol or we’ll have to prioritise the Belfast agreement and do what they did, suspending the protocol.

    1. Andy
      May 18, 2021

      The withdrawal agreement – which contained the Northern Ireland protocol – passed in January 2020. You had your Brexit Parliament in place with an 80 seat Tory majority. Almost every Conservative MP voted for it. All but a handful of opposition MPs rejected it. In the European Parliament Brexitist MEPs – including Farage and his mob – all voted for it.

      If you voted Tory in December 2019 then you voted for this deal. Get Brexit Done was the slogan. And a minority of the electorate – but most of you – voted for it. I didn’t.

      And – just a reminder – the Northern Ireland protocol was negotiated ENTIRELY by David Frost and Boris Johnson. It had nothing to do with Theresa May. Brexitists had rejected her backstop, which avoided a border down the Irish Sea. It took Frost and Johnson to put that border back.

      It is funny that you are moaning about YOUR Brexit. But it is yours. It has nothing to do with Remainers. Own your mess.

      Reply I did not vote for it

      1. Richard1
        May 18, 2021

        The NI protocol was negotiated before the election. The U.K. was due to leave the EU on Jan 31.

        I did not negotiate it anymore than you did.

        Happily however it has a clear exit mechanism as the EU has already demonstrated (unlike your backstop).

      2. Will in Hampshire
        May 18, 2021

        Reply to reply: I don’t think he suggested that you did. He’s talking to the others who post here, not you.

        1. NickC
          May 19, 2021

          Will, I didn’t vote for it either. I voted to Leave the EU, in the only vote I was allowed on the subject.

    2. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Richard1, Well said.

  15. Bryan Harris
    May 18, 2021

    When is Boris going to invoke the committees of fairness that were written into the BREXIT agreement.

    The EU is deliberately working against our best interests – Time they were brought to heel.

    Their methodology though is to always have some means of exerting their control – The EU is not a friend but an actual adversary, always working to harm us.

    1. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Some Tory MPs always knew the EU was an adversary, and a hostile one at that. Perhaps the current behaviour of the EU will teach the reality of its vindictiveness to the rest.

    2. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      Voting Leave was a signally hostile act.

      Own the consequences of your very silly actions.

      1. None of the Above
        May 18, 2021

        It was a Democratic act. The fact that the EU (and some British Citizens) are not familiar with the concept of Democracy does not make it a hostile act. Attempting to undermine Democracy however, IS a hostile act.

        1. MiC
          May 18, 2021

          Yes, filing for divorce is a legal act.

          Perfectly blameless spouses receiving the papers might be forgiven for finding them hostile however.

          1. NickC
            May 19, 2021

            Fake news, Martin. The UK and the EU empire were not married. In fact the EU itself provided the exit clause (TEU Art50) for a mere political agreement in case it was not working. As it demonstrably wasn’t.

      2. Bryan Harris
        May 19, 2021

        Voting Leave was a signally hostile act.

        Far from – It was a cry from the heart.

        It was the most healthy thing the UK has done in the last 50 years.

        The fact that we are still having stupid problems with the EU is a reflection on them, and should demonstrate to every single remoaner that still wants to be ruled over by an unaccountable remote regime just how insincere, dishonest and useless the EU really is.

    3. bill brown
      May 19, 2021

      Bryan Harris

      They are our friends and allies and it is in there intrest that Britain is sucessful, so they can make more business, so I am afraid I have to say what you are writing is fake news

      1. Bryan Harris
        May 19, 2021

        BB

        No – what you mean is that you can’t spot the truth, and remain ignorant of what is, and has been happening – So please don’t throw PC words around that make you sound good, when you have no clue.

      2. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Bill Brown, Individual European countries may be our friends and allies, but the EU empire is our enemy. As it has frequently and continually demonstrated.

  16. Narrow Shoulders
    May 18, 2021

    Trading standards on either side of the border will ensure that there is no contraband on sales and deal with any errant supply chains.

    There is no need for the East West checks, and the EU surely has no basis to insist that there are. We are a sovereign nation and it is up to them to secure their own borders.

  17. Lifelogic
    May 18, 2021

    A letter today in the Telegraph for a Wokingham resident (a JR constituent I assume) a couple in their 80s, about difficulties booking a GP appointment (difficulties doubtless deliberately put in place to deter). Another letter from Dr sensible suggesting polyclinics he has seen working well elsewhere.

    Listening to Talk Radio and other sources it is clear many GPs and hospitals are treating patients with complete and utter contempt. As the NHS payment system actively encourages them to do. It needs sorting out.

    1. graham1946
      May 18, 2021

      ‘Polyclinics’

      We had perfectly usable ‘walk in centres’ which were ditched by the Tories to save shirt buttons which they could waste elsewhere. These centres were only there in the first place because the private contractors, the GP’s did no longer wanted to do their job 24/7 but only wanted to provide office hours consultations, no home visits and got a big pay rise for it all, organised by the Labour Government. The Tories then ‘re-organised’ (I’d say dis-organsied) the NHS, making it much more costly, less efficient, more bureaucratic. The Health Service and Education should not be a plaything of the politicians who are rank amateurs in the main in everything they do except feathering their own nests. The Lansley proposals were like the NIP, mostly not understood by lazy MP’s who accepted it because it was the easy thing to do.

  18. nota#
    May 18, 2021

    The basics of Democracy – No one in Northern Island is permitted to scrutinise, amend, or repeal the Laws Regulations and Rules being applied to them. That is not therefore a Democracy that is a State Ruled by a Dictator.

    1. Len Peel
      May 18, 2021

      And yet every Tory MP voted for it!

    2. None of the Above
      May 18, 2021

      Agreed. One of the reasons that I think the NI Protocol breaches the Good Friday Agreement.

    3. graham1946
      May 18, 2021

      So what happened to the mistaken notion that one Parliament cannot bind a successor? It’s a lie. They do it all the time, moaning about laws in opposition and doing nothing about it when attaining power.

  19. Walt
    May 18, 2021

    Sir John, On the subject of trade, are you supportive of the free trade agreement that Liz Truss is negotiating with Australia and New Zealand?
    Today, the FT reports that Mr Gove and Mr Eustice are against it, lest it damage the interests of some Scottish and Welsh farmers.

    1. turboterrier
      May 18, 2021

      Walt
      The way the congregation and preachers are going in the Church of Climate Change in less than a decade there will be no red meat for sale, it will be coming from laboratories out of test tubes. The world is going bleeding mad.

    2. Richard1
      May 18, 2021

      The govt needs to ignore the likes of George eustice Theresa villiers and the nfu. If we U.K. farmers can’t compete with cheaper and better produce from australia and NZ but we think there is a public good in keeping them going then we should just pay them direct subsidies. There is no case for denying consumers the max choice of the best products at world market prices. The environmental scaremongering on this is absurd. If villiers, eustice etc are against a comprehensive FTA with Australia and NZ then they shouldn’t have supported Brexit.

      1. J Bush
        May 18, 2021

        IMO all meats products should be slaughter labelled. NZ are halal, but I don’t know about Australia. Let the UK consumer make an informed decision on what they want to purchase.

        Because of the governments refusal to give the UK consumer that choice, with the exception of pork, my other meats are purchased from a local farmers market.

        1. Mark
          May 18, 2021

          Also buy much of our meat from a local farm shop. We often get to see it on the hoof (at least for the cattle and sheep) before it is butchered – the herd in the adjoining field slowly diminishes, and a new herd comes in to replace it. Quality is outstanding. The team of butchers will prepare meat to order, and make a variety of sausages etc. as well.

    3. Fedupsoutherner
      May 18, 2021

      I don’t know why we are bothering so much with Scotland when they clearly want to leave the UK and probably will in due course. As usual they are holding England back. That goes for the Welsh too.

    4. a-tracy
      May 18, 2021

      How can meat from Australia and New Zealand travel halfway around the world for less than it costs Scottish and Welsh farmers to produce and sell local meat?

      1. Fedupsoutherner
        May 18, 2021

        I’ve always asked that question. We were surrounded by farms and even let out 20 acres to farmers with sheep and cows and yet I always bought NZ lamb at half the price of Scottish. Madness.

        1. a-tracy
          May 19, 2021

          FuS – this is a bizarre argument. Surely the Aus/NZ lambing time it diametrically opposite to ours and we could then open an export market to them in their winter months quid pro quo?

          We need to start looking closer at our farmers and why they can’t make money locally in the UK that we need to import so much beef from S Ireland and the EU and pork from Denmark but now suddenly we can’t possibly open up markets to keep our meat at good year round prices?

  20. Peter Parsons
    May 18, 2021

    GB/Northern Ireland trade was working perfectly well before Brexit. GB/Northern Ireland trade could have carried on perfectly well post-Brexit had Brexit taken on a different form (e.g. EFTA/EEA as the likes of Nigel Farage originally argued for).

    The current problems are all down to the type of Brexit implemented by this Conservative government combined with their utter failure in being ready for it. Cameron may have “saved the union”, but Johnson won’t. I fully expect that, within a generation, the UK will shrink from 4 nations down to 2, and Brexit will be the factor responsible for that happening.

    1. turboterrier
      May 18, 2021

      Peter Parsons.

      Look on the bright side Peter look how many free loaders we will get rid of.

    2. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      I can hardly believe that three and a half years on I’m still having to refer to people to this Sky report:

      https://news.sky.com/video/is-the-norway-sweden-border-a-solution-for-ireland-11141058

      “Is the Norway-Sweden border a solution for Ireland?”

      As far as the Irish government was concerned the answer was “No”, because:

      “We have been very, very clear from day one, there cannot be a physical border and that means ruling out cameras, that means ruling out technology, that means ruling out anything that would imply a border on the island of Ireland, it is not an option for us”.”

      Later they moved on to the idea that even if checks were performed away from the border that would still amount to a hard border, and Boris Johnson was prepared to swallow that nonsense as well.

    3. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Peter P, We voted to Leave entirely, not remain partly under EU control via the EEA.

      1. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        You personally might have, but as for what the other seventeen million wanted, well, you haven’t a clue, and largely neither have they.

        Stop being quite so toweringly silly.

        1. Peter2
          May 18, 2021

          MiC
          Do you what kind of EU those who voted remain had in their minds?

          1. MiC
            May 19, 2021

            Read the treaties.

            The aims of the European Union are all there.

          2. Peter2
            May 19, 2021

            How many who voted to remain were hoping the UK would join the Euro?
            How many who voted to remain liked the idea of an EU armed force with member nations armed forces under the control of the EU?

            How many who voted to remain favour the concept of no nations just regions all collectively know as The United States of Europe?

            Do you know MiC ?

        2. NickC
          May 19, 2021

          Martin, We could only vote on the ballot alternatives – to leave the EU or remain in it. There was no option to remain partly in the EU. And no option for part of the UK to remain in the EU. Everyone who voted accepted that. So yes I do know what 17.4m people actually voted for. Whether they were enthusiastic or reluctant is immaterial.

    4. graham1946
      May 18, 2021

      Peter, it is because the Tories are the party of the EU, they took us in on lies, held the 1975 referendum based on lies, passed the Maastricht agreement on lies and wanted us to stay in which is why Mrs. May tried to hog tie us in under the counter. We are lucky to have what we have got, even if it is BRINO and a mess, but don’t rest assured that they won’t get us back in by more lies and back door tactics. We must be vigilant.

    5. MiC
      May 18, 2021

      Yes, many, many things were working perfectly well.

      Those who have wrecked livelihoods and lives will not accept their responsibility however, which makes them all the more reprehensible.

      1. steve
        May 18, 2021

        MiC

        “Those who have wrecked livelihoods and lives will not accept their responsibility however”

        …….and that’s the root of the problem with British politics. +1

      2. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Martin, Do you accept responsibility for the lives and livelihoods wrecked by entering the EU (EEC) in 1973? Do you accept responsibility for the continuous wrecking of the UK by the EU up to 2021?

  21. nota#
    May 18, 2021

    What this is all about is the Belfast Agreement.

    The EU Commission doesn’t trust those from the EU State of the former RoI to be honest – full stop.

    As Democracies at the time, those on either side of the border agreed an international treaty the ‘Belfast Agreement’ and it is just between the parties concerned. In the World of Democracies this means it is for those people and those people alone to decide if and how anything should be amended.

    The way I see it the so-called NI Protocol has no standing as the parties affected, those that agreed the Belfast Agreement are not involved in how or if anything should evolve.

    The discussion is about the Protectionist Racket run by Brussels and does the World stand up for Democracy or roll over and submit to Dictatorship. As the EU Commission is not Democratically Selected and not held accountable to an Electorate, by definition it is a Dictatorship. It is a Trade Association looking for a purpose – just as with the previous days discussions on this Blog – it is mission creep looking to protect itself.

    Not for getting at the outset the UK and the EU Commission agreed nothing would be agreed until everything is agreed. The reasoning behind is because from the outset the EU Negotiators broke their own rules, regulation and laws that clearly state all Withdrawals Agreements were to run in tandem – severance commitments and future trade decided at the same time. The EU Broke their own WA terms on day one, and are still breaking that now.

    So in effect by the EU’s own play book there is no Northern Ireland Protocol. But the EU Commission being the EU Commission ignores their own wrong doing.

    It is time for the EU and its member States to decide whether the EU is a Country or a Trade Association.

    1. MiC
      May 19, 2021

      The European Union is a unique, unprecedented entity.

      It does not have to be either of those two things.

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        Martin, The EU is neither unique, nor unprecedented, it (currently) has the form of an Empire (to coin a phrase!). However the EU is rapidly developing into a single state – the logical consequence of “ever closer union”.

  22. Denis Cooper
    May 18, 2021

    Here is a relevant letter that I have sent to our local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser:

    “Last week in his response to the Queen’s Speech Prime Minister Boris Johnson said:

    “Everything we do will be done as one United Kingdom, combining the genius of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland – joined together by blood and family tradition and history in the most successful political, economic and social union the world has ever known”

    And he uttered many other warm words about that union.

    Three days later it emerged that thanks to his crazy and dangerous deal with the EU our fellow UK citizens in Northern Ireland will have to wait until the EU’s regulator has approved a new anti-cancer drug which is now available to patients in Great Britain.

    The same day saw the opening of the judicial review of the revised Irish protocol, with counsel for the plaintiffs offering the High Court judge in Belfast a vivid historical comparison with the position of the Vichy government in Nazi-occupied France.

    It really is time for so-called “Conservative and Unionist” MPs to decide whether or not they want the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to continue to exist.

    If so, they should press for a Bill authorising and instructing the government to abrogate the Irish protocol.

    If not, they should press for a Bill to clarify the constitutional position of Northern Ireland as what is known in international law as a “condominium”, no longer part of the United Kingdom, and with Her Majesty sharing sovereignty with the European Union.

    That is what the Spanish government has long been angling for with Gibraltar, against the wishes of the population, and it is shameful that Tory MPs agreed to Boris Johnson effectively imposing that kind of arrangement on people in Northern Ireland.”

    1. DOM
      May 18, 2021

      I feel sick at the sleazy deception taking place. This PM is no unionist but a secessionist who sees the destruction of the UK an important necessity to keeping the Tories at the table of power

      I have said before that I believe both main parties are utterly without principle that they will place their respective parties interests before all and everything. Shameless doesn’t even begin to describe their appalling behaviour

      The UK is dead and both main Parliamentary parties are DIRECTLY responsible

    2. NickC
      May 18, 2021

      Denis, Good letter.

    3. Len Peel
      May 18, 2021

      Denis, the British people voted to betray NI at the last General Election, the oven ready deal means a border in the Irish Sea. What right do you have to refuse the people’s vote?

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 18, 2021

        More to the point, what right did Boris Johnson have to lie to the people?

        1. graham1946
          May 18, 2021

          Boris Johnson, the man who wrote two scenarios for leaving and remaining and only decided when he thought which one would advance his personal ambitions most. Conviction politician he ain’t.

        2. MiC
          May 18, 2021

          Every right, according to the High Court.

          Welcome to England.

          1. Peter2
            May 18, 2021

            The Courts cannot involve themselves in politics.
            That is a relationship between electors and those that stand for election.
            If you feel aggrieved that a particular politician or a party has lied to you then your remedy is to vote them out.

          2. MiC
            May 19, 2021

            But they did exactly that by making a ruling.

            They did not dismiss the case as not justiceable.

            The case was, however, specifically about standards in office, not about politics.

            Things are legal in England which send public figures to prison in better countries therefore.

          3. Peter2
            May 19, 2021

            The ruling was because they were asked.
            Their firm response was that it was not their business.

            If you know of acts that are seriously illegal then report them to the Police.

          4. NickC
            May 19, 2021

            Martin, The High Court said no such thing. VoteLeave were completely justified in using the gross figure of £350m per week because that amount, and any subsequent rebate, was under the direct control of the EU, not the UK. And it is within the right of any campaign group to suggest an alternative way of using taxpayers’ money.

  23. nota#
    May 18, 2021

    OF Topic

    The EU is to permit those with UK Covid Passports to enter the EU.

    Is that so the UK can then import the Virus from the EU? Its bizarre the MsM was yesterday carrying lots of stories of the tests therefore cost for people travelling abroad. Not once did they mention the Cost to the UK economy of those bring the Virus back in, un-hindered.

    The UK’s problem is not those leaving the Country, but those coming back into the Country as carriers of Covid. Lots of excuses surrounding the so-called Indian variant, but it wasn’t in the UK until it was permitted entry, then permitted to be circulated. It only transmits by human contact.

    If the original lock down was adhered to and proper checks in place for those entering the Country it is not possible for the virus to exist in the UK.

    What variant does it become once the ‘Indian’ merges with the ‘Kent’ version.

    1. MiC
      May 19, 2021

      I suppose that if the some European Union countries – for it is a sovereign matter – had refused to accept such people then you would have whimpered about being victimised yet again?

      1. NickC
        May 19, 2021

        What, you mean like you whimpering about Brexit, Martin?

  24. glen cullen
    May 18, 2021

    Sort out the GB/NI Trade ?

    That’s easy – withdraw from the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement and NI protocol and go WTO….problem solved

  25. Peter Parsons
    May 18, 2021

    I see it being reported that Lord Frost wishes to hire an external adviser in an attempt to find some positives from Brexit. How much is that going to cost us?

    I can save all us taxpayers the cost by doing that job for free. If, after 5 years of looking, they need to hire some expensive consultant to attempt to try and locate any positives, “There aren’t any”.

    1. MiC
      May 19, 2021

      Makers of English seaside rock are cock-a-hoop, Peter.

      1. Peter2
        May 19, 2021

        Experts still predicting higher growth rates for the UK than the EU over the next few years MiC

  26. Christine
    May 18, 2021

    When will you politicians learn that the EU is not your friend?

    Who is carrying out these checks if they break the agreement to keep the UK single market flowing? Why is the UK Government allowing them to be carried out on UK soil? I see a weak UK Government which constantly backs down in the face of EU aggression.

    Gove said he had a plan when it was agreed to withdraw the clauses of the UK Internal Market Bill. We are still waiting for it.

    1. J Bush
      May 18, 2021

      I am of the opinion that after 40 years of blaming the EU for constraints, UK politicians became nothing more than box tickers. They needed to keep some constraints in place, otherwise their naivety and ignorance would become obvious to too many. They were also frightened of being made accountable for their failures. Too late! You didn’t respect the democratic vote and signed up to/voted for this idiocy. You are therefore responsible and accountable for the mess you have created.

      1. glen cullen
        May 18, 2021

        I agree with your assessment

      2. MiC
        May 18, 2021

        The referendum was utterly silent on what arrangements with the European Union would be negotiated for after the UK had left.

        If you wanted one on those then you should have asked at least. We in Labour advocated it, however.

        You didn’t, so stop moaning.

        1. Peter2
          May 18, 2021

          Labour advocated remaining in the EU which is why they fared badly in the last election.
          Getting their worst result since 1935.
          And today they still languish more than ten points behind the Conservatives.

          1. MiC
            May 19, 2021

            Yes, quite reprehensible parties become popular from time to time in countries around the world.

            Not in Wales, however, nor in Scotland.

          2. Peter2
            May 19, 2021

            Bit harsh to refer to the the puzzling popularity of other parties as quite reprehensible.
            But please carry on insulting all those voters you need to change to voting for Labour to drag your party out of permanent opposition MiC

        2. NickC
          May 19, 2021

          No, Martin, the Referendum was not silent on what arrangements the UK would have with the EU. The arrangements were to Leave the EU, or Remain in it. No other. We voted to Leave under rules agreed to by Remain. Not partly to Remain. And not part of the UK to Remain. Those were continuity Remain ideas. Rubbish, aren’t they?

  27. David Brown
    May 18, 2021

    A simple solution to this problem. The UK (what’s left of it)should join the EEA, this is what I want to happen within the next 10 years as the Brexit mob will have passed on by then.

    1. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      See above:

      https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2021/05/18/sort-out-the-gb-northern-ireland-trade/#comment-1229829

      Norway is in the EEA, as you want for the UK including Northern Ireland, while Sweden is in the EU, like the Irish Republic, and although the customs arrangements at the land border between Norway and Sweden are considered to be “light touch” the Irish government rejected anything like that in November 2017.

    2. J Bush
      May 18, 2021

      My daughter and son, were both in their late 20’s when they voted to leave the EU and they are not alone. I don’t know what your age is, but there is always the risk, they and others like them will outlive you.

    3. Peter2
      May 18, 2021

      What all 17.2 million of them DB?

      1. MiC
        May 19, 2021

        About five million of them if you do the stats.

        And there will be a corresponding increase in the pro-Europeans.

        1. Peter2
          May 19, 2021

          Strange how that theory never worked over the last decades.
          Why is Labour again in opposition having lost every recent election apart from Blairs three?
          Your theory suggests as old people die out the younger replacements are all pro EU, non Conservative voters.
          The data proves you are wrong again MiC

  28. Old Salt
    May 18, 2021

    Irish EU Commissioner saying on TV recently regarding the NIP “…get used to the new reality”

    As said on here previously Martin Selmayr is reported to have said “The price the UK would have to pay would be the loss of Northern Ireland”.

    What hope do we have against the determined evil empire?

    Stating the obvious – no treaty is worth the paper it is written upon unless agreed to on both sides.

    Where is our saviour?

  29. Mike Wilson
    May 18, 2021

    How can the EU impose an East/West border? Do they have troops in Northern Ireland?

    1. glen cullen
      May 18, 2021

      They have an EU commission by proxy running the UK….its called the Boris’s cabinet

    2. steve
      May 18, 2021

      Mike Wilson

      No, they’ll lobby nose – poker Biden to send US troops most probably.

  30. X-Tory
    May 18, 2021

    Your heart is in the right place, Sir John, but your votes in the chamber prop up a government intent on imposing a hard border down the Irish Sea and splitting our country in two, giving NI away to the EU. We have seen the reports – not denied by the government -that Lord Frost has proposed a calendar for the imposition of hard controls on goods from GB to NI. Lord Frost is an ENEMY of the Union. He does NOT plan to remove controls, either from GB to NI nor from NI to GB (we are still forbidden by our EU masters from eating the delicious Lough Neagh eels caught in NI – which is supposed to be our own country!).

    The Protocol is *literally* KILLING people in NI, as we cannot send vital medicines, approved in Britain but not yet approved by the EU, to sick patients there. And the government is refusing to act. It is shameful. I have said before that if the UK is one country, then there should be ZERO checks or controls between GB and NI. After all, there are no checks between London and Birmingham, so why should there be checks between London and Belfast? The government should resile from the Protocol entirely, but we know that Boris Johnson is an appalling coward who is too frightened of the EU to do this, so instead we could simply disapply the elements of the Protocol that relate to checks. After all, this is actually permissible *within* the Protocol – it’s written there in article 16. Why won’t the government simply use article 16 of the Protocol? It was inserted there for precisely this purpose!

    The government should remove all checks and restrictions on the movement of ANY item either GB to NI or NI to GB. Those who intend to transport goods from GB to the EU (ie. the Republic), via NI, should be asked to self-declare and then they can go through the appropriate EU checks. Together with intelligence-led policing, this would satisfy our commitment to preventing smuggling. But instead of this we are imposing controls on ALL movements, not just the ones eventually going to the EU. The government’s betrayal of NI disgusts me more than anything else. No other country in the entire world would ever agree to giving up part of their territory to their enemies, unless they lost this in war. And yet Boris, and the whole Conservative government, has meekly rolled over and surrendered. It is an absolute disgrace. What, in *practical* terms are you doing to correct this?

    1. a-tracy
      May 19, 2021

      “The Protocol is *literally* KILLING people in NI, as we cannot send vital medicines, approved in Britain but not yet approved by the EU, to sick patients there.”

      If we were still in the EU this EU unapproved medicine wouldn’t be available in the rest of the UK either. However, how does this medication affect Europe? This new drug would only be available to Northern Irish residents i.e. British residents, no one would get it that is in the EU? They say the border is only there to ensure nothing passes South and into the EU well surely item this could be challenged in court today as treatment would ONLY be available to Northern Irish citizens of the United Kingdom. What the heck are our government doing allowing none transferable items to be held up?

  31. Martin
    May 18, 2021

    So how is the Australia Trade deal coming on?

    Will it be tariff-free access for Australian farmers? What will the farmers think about that?

    As for Northern Ireland -the Brexiteers were warned years ago it would be difficult, and it is.

    So what is it to be ?
    1) Tariff free access to UK markets (for Australia etc), leaving Northern Ireland in limbo.
    2) Stay in the EU system
    3) Some compromise that means all things to all men and unravels in another year.

    1. Denis Cooper
      May 18, 2021

      It is only as difficult as somebody wants to make it.

      From 27 February 2018:

      https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/128146/easy-solution-to-eu-border-conundrum.html

      “Easy solution to EU border conundrum”

  32. a-tracy
    May 18, 2021

    John, can you explain just why is it so complicated, difficult, or expensive (as suppliers have written in the Guardian newspaper) to create the paperwork required to export goods to Northern Ireland?

    If the origins of a product are in the UK why isn’t this part of it simplified, provided free to do by the government to not only facilitate deliveries to Northern Ireland but also to the rest of the EU and potentially the rest of the world when people get used to certifying their products. Don’t keep bashing your heads against a brick wall fix the problem. If the checks are too onerous i.e. on every individual item them put the same restrictions on EU imports to the UK or nothing will need to change.

    We are told Ireland doesn’t want an internal border so we in the UK have to respect that. We have to fix the mess Frost agreed to.

  33. paul
    May 18, 2021

    Not worried about a united Ireland. The EU would have to match the GB contribution to Ireland in jobs and money

  34. mancunius
    May 18, 2021

    Boris was clearly obsessed by the notion of a ‘deal’ and kept on urging the electorate to vote for him because, he said, he had ‘an oven-ready deal’. (I thought at the time it sounded most unattractive – only the laziest and thickest cook buys oven-ready anything.) He repeated this ad nauseam before the Dec 2019 election. It became perfectly obvious that he was not prepared to face down the EU and tell them the NI protocol was unacceptable, and despite his obviously fake bluster he was not prepared to leave with no deal, as that would need planning: it would both demand compliance from the civil service (which Boris is incapable of enforcing) and wound his politician’s amour propre – like Chamberlain in 1938, he was 100% invested in ‘getting a deal’ – so Boris did as he always does when faced with a difficulty – he lied, and did nothing, and pretended NI was no difficulty.
    In the face of the clear intention of the EU to exploit every clause of the protocol against the UK, he pretended there would be no border between the mainland and NI, that the EU would be reasonable, friendly and lenient, and apply any checks ‘sensibly’ and ‘minimally’.
    I’m sorry, but ‘idiot’ and ‘purblind pollyanna’ are kind words for him. By showing his weakness so openly, here and in other matters (e.g. fishing, financial services concessions) he has made the EU even more determined than ever to wreak its vengeance.
    And by messing up so woefully, he has made our next inevitable stage (tearing up the NI Protocol and preparing for export tariffs) utterly chaotic. The best he can hope for is a judgment in the Habib/Hooey/Trimble case that condemns him for acting unlawfully and utlra vires in signing the NI Protocol. The Tory MPs who voted it through must also make public atonement.
    Then Boris really must disappear into the trap door of history and be replaced by a real Leaver with conviction – something he is not.

  35. Denis Cooper
    May 18, 2021

    I read here:

    https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/david-frost-northern-ireland

    “The UK and EU are currently discussing ways of potentially simplifying the Northern Ireland Protocol to make it easier for affected businesses to adhere to.”

    My first simplifying suggestion would be for the “affected businesses” to be redefined as those exporting goods across the land border into the Irish Republic, not those importing goods into Northern Ireland.

    1. Will in Hampshire
      May 18, 2021

      Most business people are entrepreneurial chancers, so they’ll switch between categories as quick as you like. How are you going to categorize them then?

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 19, 2021

        Whether as entrepreneurial chancers or as trusted traders businesses could “switch” whatever they liked, but either a business would have a licence to export goods from Northern Ireland across the Irish land border into the Irish Republic or it would not have a licence to export goods from Northern Ireland across the Irish land border into the Irish Republic, and if it was found to have done so without a licence it would be penalised.

        It is really that simple and there is no need to try to invent imaginary complications.

    2. jon livesey
      May 18, 2021

      No, you cannot “redefine” things like that, because the entire basis for the NIP is goods supposedly for NI, but potentially reaching the Single Market. That possibility is why the NIP exists in the first place.

      Do you want a system to ensure that what is to go to NI does not reach the Single Market? Sure, and why don’t you call it the NIP?

      Managing and modifying the current situation is always going to beat trying to throw the whole thing out of the window.

      1. Denis Cooper
        May 19, 2021

        So does it not occur to you that your stated “entire basis” for the protocol is illogical and wrong, when the allegedly insoluble problems relate to the small volume of goods moving between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic, and in particular from Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic, and not to the much greater volume of goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, within UK territory, whether or not some of those goods may afterwards join the trickle of goods travelling on to the Republic?

        Here is a letter I had published in the Irish Times in September 2018, alas to no avail:

        “Brexit – Time to mind our own business?”

        “I was amused to read about “perfidious Albion” (Opinion & Analysis, September 20th), when we have the Irish Government scheming to keep a part of the United Kingdom under EU economic control, ostensibly to act as a kind of buffer zone to protect the Irish market and the wider EU Single Market from unwanted goods such as US-style “chlorinated chicken”.

        Perhaps you will permit me, an ordinary British citizen, to bluntly tell your readers what my persistently pro-EU and mealy-mouthed government is still reluctant to say: that once the United Kingdom has left the EU it will be none of the EU’s business what goods are permitted in Northern Ireland, or any other part of the United Kingdom and its internal market.

        The legitimate interests of the EU and its Irish satrapy do not extend beyond the nature of the goods circulating in its own EU Single Market, and it is gross impudence on the part of the EU to presume that it should be able to continue to control goods permitted in the United Kingdom once we have freed ourselves from the EU, any more than the EU can expect to control goods permitted in the United States or other “third countries”.”

  36. steve
    May 18, 2021

    Well, it just goes to show that May and Johnson are politically one & the very same. Both totally gutless in the face of foreign bullying.

    I won’t ever again be voting for that disgusting shower.

    BRINO
    UK breaking up.
    Not sending immigrants back to France.
    Allowing French – led EU agression against our nation.
    Selling out NI.
    Allowing Iran to hold British subjects as hostages.
    Keeping air routes open from covid infected countries.
    Destroying our way of life with his green crap.
    Enshrining foreign law into UK law.
    Doing stuff to this country we didn’t give permission to do.

    The worst, and possibly the most dangerous PM this country has ever had the misfortune to suffer.

  37. jon livesey
    May 18, 2021

    An amazing amount of waffle about something that is going to fix itself. Anything that can’t go on, won’t go on, and the current NIP is just that. It’s causing problems for everyone, so it will change. It’s really as simple as that.

    Of course, most of the comments today, while pretending to be about the NIP, are really just people taking shots at whoever is their favourite hate figure of the moment. One thing is certain, though. Temporary problems caused by half a percent of total trade are not going to cause fundamental changes to Brexit itself.

  38. jon livesey
    May 18, 2021

    Here is something more significant than the NIP. The UK jobless rate is now 4.8% down from 5.1%. Overall employment rising to 75.2%, just 1.4% below pre-pandemic levels.

    These are actually pretty amazing numbers, given the damage to the economy that is supposed to have taken place in the past year.

    Do we know why this recovery is now so rapid? Is this a sign that support and stimulus payments, well in excess of normal unemployment benefits, now ought to be a feature of *any* economic downturn?

  39. ChrisS
    May 18, 2021

    There seems little chance of any agreement on the thorny subject of NI.
    Right from day 1, Brussels has weaponised the Good Friday Agreement to make life as difficult as possible for the UK. Nothing has changed. With hindsight, Parliament should have refused to endorse the Protocol, even if that meant leaving without a deal. To his credit, our host is one of the very few MPs who did not vote for the deal over this. I was wrong on this and had I been an MP, I would have voted for the deal because, like most MPs, I completely misunderstood the level of difficulty that Brussels would create on every aspect of the deal.
    Thanks to the intransigence and lack of flexibility on the EU side, trade within the UK is severely compromised. Their current interference in the trade within the UK’s internal market is completely unacceptable.

  40. Edwardm
    May 18, 2021

    Why do we have a border in our country for the benefit of the EU? Especially as the EU are weaponising it against us. If the EU want such a bureaucratic border, it should be located in EU territory and just be an internal EU matter.

  41. Fernando Ferreira
    May 18, 2021

    Dear Sir John,

    Actually, there is a very simple and straithforward solution to technically consumate a thoroughly successful Brexit for the UK: the two HMS aircraft carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales should immediately tow Great Britain away from Continental Europe for good, and leading it into the Indo-Pacific region!!
    That is, in fact, the real beginning for catching up and delivering the whole world of miraculous opportunities promised by both Leave campaigns in 2016!!
    I dare you to JUST DO IT, you Brexiteers!!

    My very best wishes for you and Lord (Deacon) Frost to punctually implement the NI Protocol,

    Yours truly,
    Fernando Ferreira

    1. NickC
      May 19, 2021

      Fernando, The UK has (mostly) left a political entity – the EU – we have not left Europe. Indeed the EU is merely self-serving, being no benefit to any nation in Europe; and should be dissolved. The only people to mourn its loss would be the myriad of eurocrats.

  42. Lindsay McDougall
    May 19, 2021

    The entire NI protocol is unnecessary.
    (1) Most people exporting from GB to the Republic would normally use a Dublin port.
    (2) Most goods going from GB to Northern Ireland are no business of the EU or the Republic.
    (3) Any consignment containing goods that might be re-exported to the Republic can be summarised on a single sheet of paper.
    (4) The Republic must provide check points inside the Republic and away from the border if they want to check exports from NI.

    It’s not our problem. It’s THEIR problem. Some say that dumping the protocol would lead to an end to the Good Friday Agreement. Go ahead, make my day. Anyone with half a brain knows that a province cannot simultaneously to two different nations. It’s a constitutional nonsense.

    1. Denis Cooper
      May 19, 2021

      Absolutely.

      https://www.maidenhead-advertiser.co.uk/news/letters-to-the-editor/130695/irish-border-a-problem-for-the-eu-not-the-uk.html

      “Irish border a problem for the EU not the UK”

      “Our Prime Minister’s “turn the other cheek” approach to negotiations with the EU may be consistent with her Christian upbringing, but it is not necessarily in the national interest.

      To take just the latest humiliation which the EU is proposing to heap upon our bowed heads, our over-conciliatory government has supinely accepted that the land border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic represents a problem for us, when in reality it is a problem for them. “

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