At last the government has published a Bill to resolve some of the deliberate law breaking and misinterpretation of this document by the EU. They must press on and legislate promptly.
The only party breaking this international law is the EU. The Protocol itself rightly makes clear the priority of the Good Friday Agreement. The EU has badly damaged that by alienating the Unionist community who do not consent to their idea of the Protocol. The EU is the only party wishing to place a border in Ireland . The EU’s interpretation of the Protocol is illegal under the 1801 Act of Union.
The Protocol itself envisages it as being temporary with express provision for its abolition or replacement under Article 13.8 . It was negotiated under Article 50 of the EU Treaty which means in EU law it was only temporary. Permanent items had to be put into the future partnership or trade agreement.
So stop telling us the U.K. ‘s modest proposals are illegal. Grasp that if you like me want the Good Friday Agreement to work these arrangements have to change as they do not have the consent if both communities.
June 14, 2022
Good morning.
Unfortunately like everything about this government it makes a big announcement only to go and disappoint. So with that in mind I shall reserve judgement until the legislation has been created and we can see exactly what is now going to happen.
Slightly off topic.
I hear that the EU will now ban all ICE vehicles from 2035 like the UK. Why not 2030, or 2040 ? Did Johnson get in first so that he could not be accused of following EU rules, or is there another power at work dictating who can do what and when ?
Cynical moi !
June 14, 2022
The difference is that the EU functionaries do not have to face an electorate, Johnson does.
June 14, 2022
Correct and the electorate will dispense with him promptly if as usual he starts backtracking.
Watch this space.
If NI is dou g so well perhaps we can reduce the Barnet payment to the English level.
June 14, 2022
The EU machine wishes to make everyone in there image, rules by the elite by dictateâŠ.remember weâre banning ice cars to stop the oceans risingâŠ.nothing has changed
June 14, 2022
Indeed.
Charles Moore today:- Ulster is not the Donbas of the European Union
Also the Telegraph editorial today:- Noâ10 and Noâ11 need a strategy for growth.
Well it would be good if they just stopped/reversed their current anti-growth strategy of tax to death, regulate to death, borrow, money print, waste, deliberate inflationary currency devaluation, expensive unreliable energy and net zero!
June 14, 2022
When EVs use fast charging much of the electricity is wasted as heat in the batteries and this then has to be removed by wasting even more electricity on large cooling fans. The rapid charge also lowers the short battery life still further. How much of the (usually gas energy) from the power station actually ends up moving the car? Can be as low as 10% after all the wastage of energy in losses power station to wheels plus all the energy needed to make car & battery (and replacement batteries).
June 14, 2022
Could you give us a reference of a technical paper reporting all these deficiencies for an electric car and battery. Thanks in advance.
June 15, 2022
One problem is most date comes from the EV industry. Data comes from many sources, typical battery specifications on charge discharge cycles, temperatures for charging, the typical energy losses at the power station and transmission, the embedded energy in a new EV and battery (which is usually means the car need to do more than 60,000 miles on zero carbon energy (we have no zero carbon electricity anyway). Look too are the duff EV battery warranty small print!
Also just go past a car on rapid charge on a warm day listen to the racket the fans make and the hot air they churn out wasting expensive electricity to heat the air.
June 14, 2022
I share the concerns Mark B contained in your first paragraph. Many times Boris promised in the HoC to invoke articles 16 but clearly had no intention of doing so, being afraid. He has only now acted because tbe DUP has stopped trusting him and demanded action.
They should not change their stance until changes are applied that satisfy them and restore our stolen sovereignty. I do not believe Boris and the Tories will impliment anything passed if they are allowed to get away with it. All the current activity is just more puffing and deceiving.
June 14, 2022
Bit like the 7, yea just 7, illegal immigrants on the first flight to Rwanda. Completely incompetent fools. A * issup in a brewery arranged by Priti Useless.
June 14, 2022
And Boris thinks that this is a success story…..he’d be happy as larry even if just one went !
June 14, 2022
We have about ~100 arriving each day and seven might leave on this aircraft today. Can they not go amd pick up todays 100 too?
June 14, 2022
Timaction, the Home Secretary did not pass the Human Rights Act or the Equality Act. I am sure she would dearly love to repeal them and come out from under the ECHR, though that is not strictly necessary in law, but Parliament would not allow it. Your quarrel is not with her but with them.
June 15, 2022
Well yes but Patel need to demand the tools to do the job and Boris needs to give her them or she needs to consider her position. Very expensive and worthless hot air plus pointless gestures are worse than useless.
June 15, 2022
Utter rubbish Rose. The ECHR is part of Johnsonâs Brexit deal. If the UK leaves it the EU can withdraw from the agreement in 12 days. Useless Patel was in govt and approved the rotten Brexit deal.
Who in their right mind would agree to ECHR being included or instrumental if it wanted to be a free independent country!
This is central as to why immigrants are not being deported.
June 15, 2022
I hope you will forgive me saying again, Hope, it is not necessary in law for us to come out of the ECHR, but it is necessary to repeal the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act.
June 14, 2022
If the cost of fuel continues to rise then there won’t be many cars by then as ordinary people will be priced off the road leaving a traffic jam-free network for the elites to travel on at their leisure, which is exactly what they want. Wake up people we are headed for a two-tier society where only the select few will be able to afford to run a vehicle.
June 14, 2022
I’m fear your comments are reality today
ICE cars manufacture ends 2026-28, ICE new car sales end 2030, the supply of second hand ICE reduces 2030-35, ICE cars disappear 2035-40……plebs are required to use public transport or cycle while elites use EVs
June 14, 2022
The devil is in the detail. It is too early to know if the legislation will properly address the current problems or if there will be areas open to interpretation that prolong the issue.
At the moment all we know is the government appears to be doing something at last.
June 14, 2022
Meanwhile on Conservative Home :-
âWhere all the money is going and what should be done. Making state services more efficient.â
Good luck with that.
âThe Secretary of State needs to take a tougher interest in the amazing array of administrative and policy jobs still being advertised for various health quangos.â
Those jobs are bullet proof. Failure just means a move to a different health authority. Nobody gets sacked.
âThere have been long-running problems with public procurement.â
Covid contracts arranged through cronyism with ill qualified friends making fortunes. Army vehicles that donât work because of excess vibrations. Get a retired politician or military man on the board and all sorts of spending just gets nodded through.
There is so much that it is difficult to know where to start.
June 14, 2022
Sorry off topic.
On this sunny day 40 years ago the War in the South Atlantic came to a merciful end.
We remember them.
June 14, 2022
We will remember them
June 14, 2022
And 76 years ago, the Donald. Mid-June seems to be good for famous people, Ernesto G., Sir John, Newt G, Boris J.
June 14, 2022
So they ban ICU vehicles yet keeping you old ICU car almost invariable saves more co2 than building a new electric car and (short lived) battery especially as we have no spare low carbon electricity to charge them with anyway. Still some good new that have stopped the grant subsidies for them. So as they clearly save no net worldwide CO2 why are they pushing them?
June 14, 2022
M_B, The average age of a car at scrappage is 13.9 years (from smmt.co.uk): 2021 + 13.9 = 2034.9 QED
14/07/2021 gov.uk DfT âTransitioning to zero emission cars and vansâ.
June 14, 2022
Good quality cars last far longer. My Rolls Royce Silver Dawn is still running very nicely at 67 years of age and my MCG Roadster is 54 years old, ditto. We intend to run all of our IC engined cars on indefinitely. In our household there are also a 2003 Diesel, and a 2017 petrol, Mercedes and a 2003 BMW X5 that runs on both petrol and LPG. All have been in our ownership for a very long time and have been well looked after. We have no need for any electric car. Not buying one is a significant contribution to limiting emissions.
June 14, 2022
But the ban on production of Internal Combustion Engined vehicles is 2030 heffy.
Add your 13.9 figure and we get to 2043.9
June 15, 2022
P2, I was answering Mark_Bâs question. The PM told us about the transition in 2021.
Your comment is as so often off-topic.
However I answered it because I do not want you to feel absolutely useless and rejected.
Can you see how a good-hearted I am?
But I know I am wasting my time with you, you are too far gone.
June 14, 2022
In any case no truly friendly country nor real allies would even seek to impose any international agreement that prevents or even hinders internal trading or transactions within another sovereign country. To do this (as was done to China by European countries in the nineteenth century) is called ‘imperialism’.
June 14, 2022
Nah.
It’s simply that brexit is the awful mess that Remain patiently and repeatedly explained that it would be, and for exactly the reasons that they gave.
Don’t bleat that you weren’t fully forewarned.
June 14, 2022
Nah
It’s just that the rejoiner blob are working away towards their ambition.
June 14, 2022
Good morning
This entire issue does not in anyway concern itself with agreements or statutory legislation which are mere fancies. What we are seeing is a pure power play. An attempt by the EU to splinter a nation in half by threats and intimidation.
I’d like to know more about the cancerous, vicious role of US Democrat Party leaders. Not content with destroying American democracy with their Neo-Marxist power grab tactics the DP now seem intent on creating two new countries ie Ireland and Great Britain.
I have no doubt that Obama’s sockpuppet in the Whitehouse will be using the leverage of the US-UK trade deal to force the issue of a United Ireland.
I sometimes wonder who the enemy now is in this authoritarian post-democratic era created for us by people who wouldn’t look out of place in early C20th European politics
June 14, 2022
+many
The Democrats seem to have created a police state and are chucking opponents into prison willy nilly on the most tenuous of charges.
This country of course is following suit.
Yet neither the U.K. nor the US seem over fussy as to whom they choose as allies.
How goes the war I wonderâŠ. and our descent into a banana republic?
All engineered by politicians with âgunboat diplomacyâ.
June 14, 2022
The defenestration and usurping of our freedoms, our liberty and our democracy to be replaced by a vicious political construct seems to perk you up no end mate. We all pay the price in the end and that’s the tragedy of allowing totalitarian politics masquerading as the defender of the victim to destroy the civil world
I despise politics
June 14, 2022
Ah yes! That one time leftist scourge of the establishment Mr Blair (dressed distressingly like some particularly unattractive Vermeer muse) seemed to be happily proclaiming his hypocrisy is now complete.
June 14, 2022
1. “The EU has badly damaged that by alienating the Unionist community who do not consent to their idea of the Protocol”. Not true. The Unionist community objected vigorously to Boris’s Protocol in 2019 on the basis that it caused a border between NI and GB, but it was forced through by the Conservative Party. It is the Conservative Party, not the EU, which has alienated the Unionisty community.
2. “The EUâs interpretation of the Protocol is illegal under the 1801 Act of Union”. Nonsense. The EU is not bound by the 1801 Act of Union. The EU did not exist in 1801.
3. “The Protocol itself envisages it as being temporary”. It does not. Mrs May’s deal referred to the Protocol as temporary but all references to the word “temporary” were removed in Boris’s deal.
4. “…. with express provision for its abolition or replacement under Article 13.8”. Yes – but only if both sides agree. Unilateral action by the UK is not allowed. It is illegal.
5. “… these arrangements have to change as they do not have the consent if both communities”. And yet Brexit was forced through despite a large majority vote against it in Northern Ireland. Community support did n’t matter then! I smell hypocrisy
June 14, 2022
In addition, the implementation details of the Protocol were not imposed in the UK. The UK were an equal partner in agreeing all of the details, and all the current arrangements were signed off by Michael Gove (his signature is on all the documents).
Furthermore, both Johnson and Frost have subsequently admitted that they knew that the Protocol would cause the situation it has and they willingly signed up to it anyway.
I had hoped that leaving the EU would see an end to Westminster politicians blaming Brussels for decisions freely and willingly made in Westminster, but clearly not.
June 14, 2022
Another rejoiner who has never read the NIP
June 14, 2022
I have read some of the implementation documents that Gove signed. Have you?
June 15, 2022
And they have been re interpreted by the EU to give a different result to the one intended.
Do you think it is really necessary to stop and inspect major supermarket lorries delivering to their own branches?
The EU are playing us up.
Quite deliberately.
June 14, 2022
If, as you state, the NIP wasnât quite âoven readyâ or suitable for purpose or upon reflection what was expected, then surely we should be able to amend or repeal the NIP â why should we be held to a treaty or protocol that doesnât benefit both parties
As no parliament can bind another, than no treaty can bind its people in perpetuity
June 14, 2022
1) It is true that the Unionist community objected to the NIP in 2019, but that does not mean that they will not support the proposed amendments.
2) We are talking supremacy here. The UK is sovereign and the 1801 Act of Union has precedence of any and all international law as treaties can be abrogated at any time.
3) All international agreements such as the TCA and NIP are temporary for reason of 2)
4) You made that up! If the NIP isn’t working, which it isn’t, then the UK and the EU have the responsibility to fix it. If the EU don’t want to play ball then tough!
5) It was a UK referendum and NI is an integral part of the UK. Ask the loyalists whether they would rather that NI leave the UK and unite with the Republic so as to remain in the EU or dump the EU and Single Market to stay in the UK. I think you know what the answer to that would be.
June 14, 2022
The majority of unionists voted for Brexit.
June 14, 2022
Gary
Thank you.
You can start looking at the hypocrisy in the ERG and it’s supporters
June 14, 2022
Sir JR
Interesting and rather as we already know emotional text on the NI Protocol.
=THE EU does not want a border in Irealnd, that is wrong.
-NI is growing faster thasn the rest of the UK, (which unfortuantely is not growing at all for the moment.
-There is a majority supporting the protocol in NI.
-There is generally in the two communities no confidence in the PM as a mediator
-Unfortunately, the EU has bigger problems to deal with and will therefore not react at all till they know what the legislation is going to look like.
-Fortunately, we are still negotiating with both the EU and the Irish .
June 14, 2022
Yes, so much for “localism” and “decentralisation” eh?
June 14, 2022
The EU has confirmed its absurd extreme and intransigent position that negotiations must stay within the constraints of the existing protocol text, not as much as a word or even a comma may be changed.
https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2022/0613/1304596-eu-action-protocol/
“EU will not renegotiate Northern Ireland Protocol – Ć efÄoviÄ”
“Renegotiating the protocol is unrealistic”
Perhaps you would care to explain what would be “unrealistic” about revising the text of the protocol in the light of both the practical experience of its operation and the recognition of its intrinsic limitations.
June 14, 2022
Maybe the answer is to put the protocol to a referendum in NI
June 14, 2022
The PM also has bigger problems to deal with – Project Save Big Dog.
June 14, 2022
@bill brown,
+1
– The EU is concerned and listens to all the local parties and communities, not just the DUP.
– The UK apparently hasn’t engaged with the various EU proposals.
– The timing of this law initiative looks a bit suspicious – related to Mr. Johnson’s survival?
June 14, 2022
Why should the EU be interested at all in NI. It is a part of an independent sovereign state yet you continue to think you should be able to impose your laws on it? It is no more than a naked attempt to keep a foothold in the U.K. and promote the rest of Irelandâs interest.
You are joking when you say we are not listening to your proposals and typical that you think anything other than recognising total sovereignty is an option. All we ever get is about the sanctity of the EU, never about the U.K. who, from the rubbish spouted by Macron etc about our vaccines, attacks on our companies allegedly breaking contracts, complaining about unfair submarine details, it is obvious your elites detest us.
Look at the performance of your beloved Germany and France in relation to the Ukraine.
Appalling. Your political masters would do better helping that country rather than punishing us but then, having a go at the U.K. is a typical diversion tactic by the âlittle napoleanâ
June 14, 2022
I am Bristish and my political masters are not the EU and your idea of an EU vendetta to punish the UK is not only rediculous it is actually embarrasing, because you are thinking the EU really does not ahve better things to do?
The performance of France and Germany towards the Ukraine has been very different but that has unfortuantely not come to your notice.
Whar an absloute load of rubbsih Nigl
June 14, 2022
Is that what the German, Dutch, and French press are saying? I haven’t checked. There is very little understanding on the Continent of Northern Ireland.
June 14, 2022
The same level of understanding of what happens in continental Europe seen from this side of the Channel, maybe?
June 15, 2022
The difference is that our media tend to ignore the Continent altogether.
June 15, 2022
To their detriment, maybe?
June 14, 2022
And so says the spokesman for vonder liar
June 14, 2022
âThere is a majority âŠ?â
A majority of the PEOPLE in NI oppose the current protocol.
The EU has bigger problems – we all agree they should focus on these.
NI is growing at a faster rate (but from a lower base, over a shorter time frame?) Not sure how relevant that is.
June 14, 2022
Matthu
there is majority supporting the Protocol in the population in NI
June 15, 2022
MFD
Some real content would really serve you better and be ore civilised
June 14, 2022
Youâll be sooo angry when you find out which political party negotiated this terrible deal, won an election on it and then forced it through Parluament
June 14, 2022
Just be honest Len and admit that your real ambition is to re join.
June 15, 2022
Peter 2
what about some real content?
June 15, 2022
Says bill with a 5 word post.
Hilarious.
June 14, 2022
I’ll support the government’s intent and hope that it is accompanied by action. But I’ll also be looking for signs that Sweden and Finland will be offering us some support in Brussels. It was only a few weeks ago that Boris provided both countries with an offer of defence assistance, while their borders were threatened by evil empire-wannabe Russia. It would be a sick joke if they now supported the evil empire-wannabe threatening our territorial integrity in Ireland.
June 14, 2022
My advice to the Government.
Stop using soy milk in your lattes.
June 14, 2022
Do you mean soya milk?
June 14, 2022
The legislation intends to deceive. None of its clauses (except the wrap-up clauses 21-26) come into effect on the day the Bill receives Royal Assent (see clause 26(3)). Their activation depends on the making of commencement regulations by the government. There is no guarantee, therefore that they will ever be activated. Even if activated, clause 15(2) allows for a subsequent minister to reinstate an âexcluded provisionâ of the Protocol. This is therefore merely enabling legislation that in itself changes nothing. The impression is of a sleight of hand from a do-nothing government incapable of effecting change.
June 14, 2022
We do not hear UK govt ministers argue that the EU is in breach of the law, as you do here. All we hear is the rather limp argument that the protocol is “not working”. To which the EU – and to be fair 1/2 or so of the people of NI – say ‘it’s working fine as far as we are concerned and in any event you signed it’.
For this fight to be worthwhile the UK govt needs to make the legal grounds on which it stands much clearer. Given it again puts relations with the EU back in the freezer, which had a cost, it is only worthwhile if the govt intend other measures to make brexit worthwhile. At the moment it looks like we will end up more taxed and regulated (and badly regulated) than we were in the EU. If that remains the case we may as well have stayed in.
June 14, 2022
Yes, at last we are going to remove this terrible Protocol which exists because, err, the Conservative Party agreed it and voted for it in Parliament
June 14, 2022
It is not obvious from the Bill how goods produced in Northern Ireland and intended for export to the Irish Republic would be checked for their suitability for the EU market, potentially detecting any local offenders who risk undermining the integrity of the EU Single Market – which the UK as a good neighbour does not wish to do.
The focus still seems to be exclusively on the best way to check and control the flow of goods into the province, imports – which is none of the EU’s business.
According to the Explainer:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution/northern-ireland-protocol-the-uks-solution
“only a sixth of goods that move into Northern Ireland are determined to be at risk of entering the EUâs market”
Combining that with the 2019 trade statistics:
https://www.nisra.gov.uk/sites/nisra.gov.uk/files/publications/Overview-of-NI-Trade-October-2021.pdf
gives ÂŁ11.4 billion divided by six = ÂŁ1.9 billion for the value of those goods that just passed through the points of entry into Northern Ireland on their way to the Irish Republic versus ÂŁ3.4 billion as the total value of the goods exported to the Republic, hence to a first approximation 44% of the goods crossing the land border will have been produced in the province.
Therefore checking all imports, but only imports, would not only be an inefficient way to protect the EU Single Market but an ineffective way.
June 15, 2022
And what of OUR market and its integrity ? Contaminated meat from the RoI into the UK for example.
We are equals, not servants of the EU !
June 15, 2022
I want the Bill to be passed.
http://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/06/10/the-paradox-of-the-eu-and-the-uk-official-establishment/#comment-1323248
âLaw to overhaul Northern Ireland Protocol has better chance of passing if it protects EU single marketâ
“Yes, I know, why should we do anything to help these people who are trying to do us down? I have said as much myself back in what seems to be a previous age, but then as now I wanted a solution”
June 14, 2022
This is at least a year too late and even now we’re just at the start of the proceedings to get the Bill through Parliament with pro-EU, anti-democratic, unelected, unaccountable members of the House of Frauds loudly declaring that they will block it and no doubt there will be many MPs who will seek to do likewise.
The EU will huff and puff; le petit Macron will strut around making threats and Biden will give us some “friendly” advice.
But that’s the point isn’t it. Johnson’s down in the polls; his Premiership is on the rocks and he desperately needs to recover the voters he has alienated with his failure to do anything to capitalise on Brexit and instead morphing into a socialist Eco Loony.
This is just an attempt to recover votes.
June 14, 2022
I see that Georgia is both an EU- and NATO-aspirant. I wonder how Brussels will be handling the border problems there.
June 14, 2022
If the Croatian border is anything to go by, it won’t worry about it. Anyway, it will want good relations with the other side, unlike on the Southern Irish border.
June 14, 2022
Wow! a little OTT this morning and while we’re at it I think we may as well “disapply” all international agreements treaties and laws going back in time – we could start afresh.
I read where the very WTO itself is already starting to unravel – as I say could be the start of something new.
June 14, 2022
What has âle petit Macronâ to do with NI? Have you a fixation on the man? Depending on your age I hope you realise it might be unhealthy?
June 14, 2022
The EU exhibits symptoms bordering on Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
They fear being increasingly incapable of control over others who break free from their unwanted nonsense. Northern Ireland belongs to the UK: Our own laws empower us to choose the shortest path to freedom and better.
Brexit was our EU antidote. Our own way ahead advances beyond their slippery grip on obtuse angles with legal wrangles. Stark reality, in due course, should help cure the EU of its ills.
June 14, 2022
Truly comical, really…
June 14, 2022
I guess we wait and see what legislation is passed, and then wait again for what the Courts (which ones) decide.
More argument and chaos to come, but at least It looks like we are serious at last.
Many years wasted talking with the EU.
June 14, 2022
Good to see Martin Howes etc being brought back in to ensure HMG legislation is robust.
Sir JR can tell me if I am wrong but the proposals do not in themselves do anything. Something will only happen if Ministers choose to trigger them.
Whatâs the guess the time will never be quite right. Until we see actual changes, ie checks lifted it will just be more posturing.
June 14, 2022
What good are protocols and treaties and agreements when a legitimate political party campaigning in Wakefield is being harassed by the state.
Are we not better than the anti democratic EU?
This is precisely what is happening in the US at the moment.
Years ago I was very shocked to learn that in a nearby village, in the early days of voting, a man lost his job for voting Liberal. I thought however that we had moved to modern enlightened times and that it couldnât happen again. Ha! The state has never stopped doing it!
The masks are slipping now and we can see in plain sight exactly what our leaders are!
June 14, 2022
A very biased view- the government admits the protocol in its present form undermines the GFA. There is strong support for the protocol in NI so get round the table and negotiate rather than pontificate
June 14, 2022
And in other news we see a classic attempt at political diversion getting the competitions committee to look into petrol stations.
So the price is nothing to do with the 45% approx tax take? On the basis that their margins are low single figures it will only ever take a few pence off meaning nothing as inflation rips.
Taking the public for fools again.
Maybe the Treasury should have concentrated more on the Covid loans where 20% of money out has gone to fraudsters.
Letâs beat up the garages, useless treasury officials costing us billions get off Scot free.
June 14, 2022
Ho, ho, ho. Continue to spout your fantasist line, Brexiters, you will convince the audience of GB News but nobody else. Lies, lies, and more lies. And third rate lies to boot, you don’t even have the imagination to come up with a plausible lie.
The Unionists opposed the Protocol when Johnson proposed it, yet somehow the Brexiters ignored that then, so to pretend to care about this now is risible.
The “modest proposals” are anything but modest. The UK will not be able to guarantee that goods imported into NI as “UK only” do not end up being shipped on to Ireland.
As usual, the lawless UK government wants to have its cake and eat it too. Hopefully the EU will not give in to the bully. As we have seen with Russia, you should never give in to bullies.
June 14, 2022
“Bullies” tend to be bigger than the folk they are bullying – the big kid on the block so to speak. So it’s a very strange word to use in the context of the EU (and US) vs the UK don’t you think?
June 14, 2022
Except Germany, Austria and Italy (Axis forces) of course who by buying Putin’s oil and gas finance his war machine
June 14, 2022
60% of UK diesel comes directly or indirectly from Russia, Dom.
June 16, 2022
All imports from russia should stop immediately
June 14, 2022
Nor should you aim your fire directly at your feet, Wab, as Western governments are doing with anti-Russia sanctions. We need an exit from this failed strategy before its consequences get any worse.
June 14, 2022
Is not the Northern Ireland Protocol immoral and shames Britain?
Of course the Government should move to sort it out – and at the same time remind people at home and abroad that it was only made necessary by strenuous quisling activity at home and its revision was always in contemplation, as the Evil Empire well-knew and understood but now, all too typically, seeks to renege on its undertakings. Alas, one questions whether this Government is up to that but we shall see.
June 14, 2022
It is interesting that apparently the current Protocol *does* prevent the government from changing VAT rates in NI. That needs to be fixed immediately.
The EU are just following their normal intransigent course of sitting back doing nothing and letting the UK establishment (Media, civil service etc.) and the USA represent them in arguing against any changes at all. Publishing the new fairly moderate bill (not likely to pass into law any time soon) may or may not induce them to negotiate in good faith but I doubt it, that will not happen until 2024 when NI can vote to dispense with the Protocol entirely. For now the Truss bill is just the same as the Rwanda policy – something that will never be put into practice but merely intended to shore up their own support.
June 15, 2022
BINGO !!
June 14, 2022
Isnât it interesting that the so-called Star Chamber of the ERG (chaired by Bill Cash), which at the end of December 2020 was telling us that Johnsonâs deal was actually restoring British sovereignty, is now, through various puppets, telling us that this very same document has allowed lawbreaking by the EU.
One could wonder whether these so-called stars have only been just red dwarves all along.
Are they getting worried that a majority of newly elected NI assembly members (52/90) have now rejected the proposed legislation to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol? Is this little âstarryâ cabal afraid to lose their power on the PM?
June 15, 2022
It’s a very good point. Everyone knew the deal was dreadful – except, it seems, Bill Cash, John Redwood, and David Frost
June 14, 2022
The NIP was always going to fail, as it was designed and initiated by Boris, his cabinet and civil service to âget brexit across the lineâ within his given time frame
Boris had the chance a week before his deadline to go âWTOâ or put further work and negotiation into the NIPâŠ.he needed a win, a win for the media and a win for the EU so he went with his ‘oven ready’ deal
The NIP will always fail as it isnât true to the spirit of the referendum nor the will of the people of the UK
June 14, 2022
Oh please don’t tell me that even you have been fooled by Boris’s latest deceitfulness, Sir John? The Northern Ireland Protocol Bill is a transparent artifice designed to trick Unionists and Brexiteers into believing that the government will take action when in reality it WON’T. The Bill is purely designed to elicit some little compromises from the EU that Boris the Traitor will then accept. By then he hopes the Unionists will have gone back to Stormont and his Brexiteer backbenchers will have moved on.
The Bill does NOT remove ANY of the current checks that are causing the problems. It is just an enabling Bill. So all the problems will continue. If Boris was genuine he would activate Article 16 in the interim, until the Bill becomes law and the necessary changes can be made permanent. Why won’t he do this? That is the crucial question, and the answer is because HE DOES NOT INTEND TO DO ANYTHING. He is simply back to his old tricks of bluff and bluster and lying to his supporters. Don’t fall for this Boris B*llsh*t yet again!
June 14, 2022
Good to see this laid out so clearly and quite succinctly.
The question it raises is… why are government ministers (and other Conservative politicians) not saying this loudly and clearly to the media, to the people? And to the EU.
Why is it not being repeated ad nauseam in the HoC? Every time some twit pipes up with “does this break internatinal law?” that should be the answer (alongside “Which specific law are you thinking of?”).
June 14, 2022
Why doesn’t HMG ever say the EU is breaking the law? Not just the Act of Union and the Belfast Agreement, not just the Northern Irish Protocol, but even its very own Treaty of Lisbon? And in the Treaty of Lisbon, not just article 50, but article 8 which says it must foster peace and prosperity on its borders. It is doing exactly the opposite. Out of vindictiveness and spite.
June 14, 2022
Rose. Plus many.
June 14, 2022
You are asking for a party outside a jurisdiction to make a pronouncement as to the law within it.
That would simply make the UK Government look very, very silly indeed.
As if more could yet be done in that regard, that is.
June 15, 2022
The whole dishonest EU case on the Southern Irish border has been built on doing just that. Mrs May should not have allowed it. Two foreign powers and now a third, pronouncing on our internal jurisdiction and twisting it to manipulate the public mind.
June 14, 2022
We keep hearing about what the government “is going” to do but hardly ever what it actually is doing. 5 years since the Grenfell fire and I wonder what progress has actually been made, for the survivors, the dependents of those killed and for ensuring planning regs are strengthened and planners held to account.
June 14, 2022
If we were American we would have taken the EU to the cleaners over its unscrutinised, undebated directive to reclothe buildings with inflammable insulation. When the Grenfell Tower was first put up in 1974, it may not have been a thing of beauty, but its original cladding was supersafe, because fire safety was paramount. Decades later the EU directive arrived and it had to be removed, with “climate change” now being paramount. This is on a par with the diesel scandal but never mentioned.
June 14, 2022
Read the reports.
Planners are nothing to do with building regulations, nor with building product safety testing and certification, which are the areas in which those reportedly culpable operate.
June 14, 2022
Off topic.
Before the broadcast media and many other critics of Rwanda start leaping up and down saying the plan has failed with a lot of dinghies crossing the channel in the next few days, let me point out that we have a huge high pressure system sitting over the south with very light winds creating perfect conditions for these little boats.
There is no law as to where we locate a reception centre for these ‘illegals’. When they are landed at Dover all males should be transported to Gatwick and flown out to our reception centre in Rwanda immediately. As they will still be in the same time zone as the EU there will be no delay in dealing with any asylum applications. Women and children can be dealt with locally.
With this very calm weather we may need 2 or 3 Bowing 767s!!!!!
June 14, 2022
Do you think that those who land without assistance report to the nearest police station?
They generally melt into the crowd, don’t they?
And their numbers are dwarfed by those who land normally at airports on visas but who then just do the same anyway.
June 14, 2022
The EU threatens the UK with retaliatory action every day, why doesn’t your government just promise them retaliatory action if they don’t make the flexible changes required by businesses within in the United Kingdom. Everyone knows there are unreasonable checks, paperwork in Latin for goodness sakes, when France ships illegal horse meat all around the EU! And they call us unreliable. We certainly need to do more checks on meat coming in from France, Belgium for a start. Isn’t this France breaking Internal EU and International Laws!
We have barriers to our trade exports, put the same barriers on EU trade products.
June 14, 2022
A-Tracy. I agree wholeheartedly with your comments. There must be many ways we can come back at them. What have the French ever done for us? Nothing! I would go so far as to say they can’t stand us. They certainly aren’t friendly towards us. We have tried to negotiate with them and the rest of the EU. We have got nowhere. They all have short memories and as a military man said tonight on the 40th anniversary of the Falklands we could not rely on Europe or the USA to help. God bless all those that fought for democracy and liberty in the Falklands. Heroes the lot of them.
June 14, 2022
I have French friends, I love Paris and the South of France, their politicians and political manoeuvrings against the UK, the selling of dinghies on French shores to aid the trafficking operations and turning a blind eye is appalling and surely illegal! The UN is not happy with the way France treats migrants and asylum seekers but France can get away with everything.
I donât want anything less expected of the EU than they expect from us. We arenât playing their silly games correctly and we need to get on and level up the playing field.
June 15, 2022
– The USA provided satellite plus signals intelligence, Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, Stinger hand-held missiles, and brought fuel in emergency to the fuel tanks on Ascension Island, where the UK fleet had to refuel. (Evening Standard, 04/04/2022).
– Margaret Thatcher said of the EC: in April 1982, âThe most significant measure has been the decision of our nine partners in the EC to join us not just in an arms embargo but also in stopping all imports from Argentinaâ.
After the war: âThis a very important step, unprecedented in its scope and rapidity of decision. I should like warmly thank our European partners for rallying to our support. It was an effective demonstration of Community solidarityâ.
As for the usual beef that anti-French right-wing people have about the Exocet missiles that damaged the HMS Glamorgan, and sank the HMS Sheffield and SS Atlantic Conveyor, those had been ordered by Argentina in 1978-79, delivered in 1979-80. France declared an embargo on any arm export to Argentina following General Galtieriâs getting to the top of the junta in December 1981. Some French instructors were still in the country when the war started in April 1982. But no Exocet missile nor any Super-Etendard helicopter (the preferred launcher for Exocets) had arrived in Argentina after December 1980.
The only thing that is controversial (but certainly not on business grounds) is that when asked by the UK the French president (Mitterrand) said he did not have the answer about how to disarm remotely the missile (the âkill switchâ). Whether he had the answer (a topic of which the Daily Mail pretends to have the solution âŠ) or could have asked it from Dassault (the manufacturer) or just procrastinated, there are certainly two arguments why the information was not passed to the British: which arm manufacturer would refuse to see its âbabies in actionâ in real battles? Then the war was finished after ten weeks and such decision to pass the info to the Brits might not have been taken so quickly.
June 14, 2022
Just a point – the allegedly unfit French horsemeat is being sold as just that, not as beef, like the stuff from Todmorden.
June 14, 2022
NLH the people in Todmorden were involved in an EU ring of baddies, I have no sympathy for any criminal why do you assume I would defend a British criminal operation I donât. The lawyers for the French vets blamed complicated EU legislation did you read it?
June 14, 2022
Plus one more point the French horsemeat recently (not from 2015) was being sold as fit for human consumption when it wasnât!
June 15, 2022
I know.
June 15, 2022
Well, it might be nice if we did some checks. Nothing coming from the EU is checked at our ports, because the government has failed to provide the money and because there aren’t the workers to spare – both a direct result of this disastrous Brexit
June 14, 2022
Lammy says “we have been calling for months for the government to secure a veterinary standards agreement that will reduce the vast majority of barriers and checks and bring long-term stability and certainty to Northern Ireland. Business groups, from the CBI to the Ulster Farmers Union, and many of the political parties in Northern Ireland, have been pleading with the government to agree to one.”
Can you explain why we can’t secure a vet. standards agreement on UK produced food?
June 14, 2022
Why not hold a referendum in Northern Ireland on whether the Protocol should remain as is or should be changed?
Doesnât Article 18 allow for this?
June 14, 2022
Because the DUP would lose thumpingly.
June 14, 2022
The stated government goal this morning is to interrupt and stop the people traffickersâŠ.if thatâs the case all they had to do was to escort one boat mid channel back to France âŠjob done
June 14, 2022
Sir John – when you say “the Unionists community who do not agree to their idea of the protocol” – surely you mean DUP Unionists- if that is the case then why don’t you say DUP.
I know quite a lot of Unionist business people in NI who are aghast with what the government is up to – they can see ahead only disruption and inconvenience to trade and then possible consequences in other areas not even thought about yet.
You say “the EU is the only party wishing to place a border in Ireland” this is blatantly untrue – surely you mean DUP – we all know the DUP would dearly love to recreate another land border on the island of ireland with 20,000 British army guarding it complete with watchtowers – just like the old days- but even then they wouldn’t be happy.
Lastly it’s hard to understand why a high profile figure like yourself could take this hard line as put out by DUP/ERG and run with it – am afraid that if this is the tories best idea of taking back control then I don’t think much of it.
June 14, 2022
Why do so many people persist in denying the existence of the Irish border? The IRA recognize it because they smuggle across it. It is also a currency border and a VAT border.
June 15, 2022
rose, well precisely and the Southern Irish put it there when they voted for their Independence, as indeed there would be a border between Scotland and England if Nicola gets her way (what do our politicians do then sell us out again). The UK has made concession after concession to keep the peace against violent uprisings, giving them their cake and letting them eat it in EU parlance. This is all causing a lot of bad feelings and I don’t think the upper echelons realise how bad.
June 14, 2022
Thanks James.
June 14, 2022
Did any members of the government think that raising the age that people can buy tobacco will make the slightest difference?
Iâm more than prepared at the age of 77 to purchase tobacco products for anyone who wants me too, criminalising drugs has been a huge success hasnât it!
Also the proposed return to imperial measures is a sop to the brexiteers industry has said that itâs impractical
Lovely still day today, you can hear the windmills spinning đ
June 14, 2022
To be honest, I’m getting a little fed up with all this concentrated effort and grievance over a decision Boris and parliament took to put the border in the Sea. It should be worked on with equivalence between us and the EU. In the meantime, he should seek to get the paperwork available for British producers to be able to export to N Ireland but also unlock the same exports into the rest of the EU and promote sales like crazy instead of us Brits sitting back and expecting people to just notice our products without any sales effort.
Most of the jobs advertised with decent rates of pay are sales and marketing jobs but no one trains or seems to want them if the rates of unemployment are true. These are jobs that can be done by people from their own homes too in a lot of cases.
Also, tell us Brits which products we can’t export into the EU that we British make. Put a big list on the TV free advertising for the companies affected. Ask your local supermarkets to support these local producers. Enough of just snivelling around being treated like poo!
June 14, 2022
Here’s an interesting article which has just appeared in Prospect magazine:
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/former-brexit-chief-the-protocol-bill-is-a-nakedly-partisan-intervention-in-northern-irish-politics
“Former Brexit chief: the Protocol bill is a nakedly partisan intervention in Northern Irish politics”
It’s by Philip Rycroft, the civil servant who was head of the Brexit department 2017- 2019.
But just the fact that he writes:
“… sorting out the Northern Ireland conundrum … ”
when in reality that was never more than a minor technical problem, not a “conundrum”, shows where he, and Theresa May, went wrong, with all the consequences which have flowed from that.
It reminds me that in October 2018 I had a letter printed in the Maidenhead Advertiser which started:
“In 1995 it was confirmed that after 358 years of effort by mathematicians Oxford Professor Andrew Wiles had finally solved the abstract problem of Fermat’s Last Theorem.
And at the rate she is going, it may take Prime Minister Theresa May a comparable period to come up with a solution to the similarly abstract problem of the Irish land border.”
And went on:
“Yet on May 10 2018 the Financial Times reported:
âUK looks to Liechtenstein in search of creative solutions to EU trade conundrumâ,
referring to the principle of âparallel marketabilityâ which allows the border between Liechtenstein and Switzerland to remain just as open for the free passage of goods as the Irish border is at present, despite differing product standards on either side.”
June 14, 2022
If you go to south america, the middle east, far east or russia as a working immigrant or illegal economic immigrant youâll get zero rights, zero legal rights and short swift from the host police and their legal systemsâŠ.so why are the illegal immigrants given rights in the UK, appointed legal aid and lawyers, allowed to appeal and use our loop holes against us â and coached by NGOs in France into what to say ââyou canât send me back Iâm gay and converted to Christianityââ
June 15, 2022
glen, couldn’t a simple solution be to say that no adult can get any benefits in the UK unless they have lived in the UK for 16 years. Then if they don’t work we can provide a free airport ticket to their home country or other safe country within a certain distance to claim from their home nation.
I wonder what France, Switzerland, Belgium offer? Do they give full housing benefits to cover rents? Free legal aid? Free translation services?
June 15, 2022
I like it
June 15, 2022
a-t, In France illegal migrants do not get anything.
Asylum seekers (i.e., once they have made an official demand) get the ADA (Allocation Demandeurs dâAsile). In 2019 it was âŹ6.80/day for a single person, âŹ17 for a family with two children. Thatâs what a legal migrant waiting for the status gets while the decision is made (seems to take anything from four months to 18+ months depending on the âdepartementâ. Accommodation is often via charities, and it is usually easier in âprovinceâ than in the Ile-de-France/Paris area. Children of school age are (usually) welcomed to a school in the nearb area.
Once a migrant has been accepted as an official refugee, he/she can ask for any of the benefits that French people can get, in particular if he/she has not (yet) found work the RSA (Revenu Solidarite Active): right now (06/2022) thatâs âŹ575.50/month + âŹ69/month (help for accommodation) for a single person.
If that looks ânot so badâ, remember that can only be obtained as an officially recognised refugee, also meaning that by the time the status is given all their relevant information has been passed to the State.
infomigrants.net, aide-sociale.fr, service-public.fr
June 14, 2022
European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is apparently supreme
June 14, 2022
@Glenn It sure has stopped Boris ‘ flights to Rwanda – tail wags dog…
June 14, 2022
As predicted by Nigel Farage, the European Court of Diabolical Liberties has blocked the deportation to Rwanda of even the footling number of freeloaders left on the flight. Will you (JR) speak up for the British people in the Commons and light a fire under Johnson to make the necessary law changes, starting with repudiation of this undemocratic European Court?
June 15, 2022
It is simply doing its job.
June 15, 2022
As I said…its supreme
June 16, 2022
NLH perhaps put it to a vote of the people whether to remain in the ECHR or not.
June 15, 2022
gc, Could it be because it is a Council of Europe agency, and when it was originally created it had an overwhelming (direct or indirect) input from the UK: the Convention creating the ECHR is based on the 1689 Scottish Claims of Right Act, the 1689 English Bill of Rights, the 1791 US Bill of Rights and the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
June 16, 2022
No I believe its supreme because its membership just happens to be the same membership of the European Union de facto the same organisation
June 18, 2022
Rather a strange statement: it might be the same countries participating but not the same people at the top, not similar ways of taking decisions, not having the same remit, âŠ
What is specific to the EU is the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. As an entity the EU is not a member of the ECHR (as of 16/03/2022), only individual countries are.
But I guess this type of nuances is not something you bother with, is it?
June 14, 2022
Well I suppose you are right Sir John. Though I believe you wanted something different. Was it trigger article 16?
Whatever.
Will your leader have the guts to see this through?
When is the next General Election?
What the hell options will we have, to vote for, by then?
June 14, 2022
Who the hell is running this country?
Its about time all the organisations, councils , unions etc that are supporting these charities have their associated tax breaks removed.
The charities themselves should lose all tax perks and the like including the RNLI as they are supporting illegal people entering the country.
The legal firms making millions out of this situation should also have their Legal Aid mandate removed as they are encouraging these legal challenges in such a way to block the courts and delay the whole deportation process. The tax payers are getting a very bad deal.
The law good or bad is the law. The 200 who arrived today should have been put on buses and taken round to the aircraft sitting on the tarmac and flown out to Rwanda. That sends a very clear messagewith no misunderstanding of the consequences if you come across.
This situatiion cannot be allowed to go on and government has got to face up to the present situation head on .
June 14, 2022
Why do any illegal economic immigrant arriving here across the channel receive ârightsââŠ.theyâre not born here, they donât have a visa to be here, they donât pay tax, theyâve broken our laws. Prior to the Blair era weâd have returned them immediately, so why are we giving them ârightsâ
June 15, 2022
Because they are human.
June 15, 2022
I can’t use that argument when I travel to France
June 14, 2022
The U.K. government should sue Simon Coveney for breaking international law. He is foreign minister of a state that has signed the Belfast Agreement. It’s most important point is the need for cross-community support in Northern Ireland. Yet he goes around saying “no one should listen to the unionist community”.
June 14, 2022
According to Liz Truss action is very necessary on the protocol so that the DUP can enter the NI assembly – but there is little chance DUP’s Donaldson is going to join with the other MLA’S at any time soon- and especially not if he has to play second fiddle to Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill – that would be a step too far – so he figures better spin it out and wait for another opportunity – meanwhile the NI demographics are changing but not in his favour.
June 14, 2022
Boris Johnson displays fatal weakness already. If this story is true he is heading the way of incompetent Theresa May.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/06/14/boris-johnson-tells-cabinet-de-escalate-protocol-stand-off-brussels/
June 14, 2022
And kowtowing to the ECHR judges at the same time – pure incompetence from this useless do-nothing government.
June 15, 2022
I see a short time ao that the European judges have stopped the flight to Rwanda. It’s an utter disgrace. How much money are these court cases costing? It’s high time we abandoned the ECHR and had our own bill of rights which doesn’t include getting into a country illegally. The majority of the British public are sick of it all as shown in many recent polls.
June 15, 2022
It does not help when leaks from Cabinet meetings report the PM as telling ministers to ‘de-escalate’ any confrontation over the NIP with the EU (or to ‘grow up’ when they demand tax cuts. It was Johnson who spent our money locking down and trashing the economy. It was Johnson who signed the NIP that at the time I wrote here was a disastrous compromise. Nor does it help when many Tory MPs question the very basis of the NI Bill and mutter unceasingly about ‘breaking international law’.
Sir John, your parliamentary party is basically a left-wing, globalist party of elitist remainer wets, in no way representing the nationwide supporters of the party, and with only a small wing of radical reforming conservatives on the Tory benches, and a grand coalition of anti-Tories in the Lords. It is time you joined together, stood and fought the real enemy, which – as in 1940 – is no longer on the benches opposite.
June 15, 2022
correction: ” (or to âgrow upâ when they demand tax cuts). [close bracket]
June 15, 2022
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus
Until there is a desire and a democratic mandate for a United Ireland via consent of the parties concerned. Say a referendum every 10-20 years. We need remove any damaging impacts on the UK Union single market. Protocol should have been ditched immediately post the election prior to the EU responding. The fact Boris did not speaks to his intent given his obvious political opportunism and ability to tack as a survival instinct . HMG will tack again and liblabcon history tells you which way.
There is animus from the EU ever since Brexit. HMG have been too reasonable some would say weak and worse. So time to cease the pretence of negotiations which are only to hoodwink the UK/NI public into maintaining the status quo.
June 15, 2022
Tlc or TLC ? That is the question.
Tender loving care of Tuff-love correction to keep a civilised society. We are importing too many people with totally different norms of behaviour and encouraging a broken future.
Unless you have experience of working in many of the wild places overseas where drugs, crime and law and driving attitudes are totally different from say the cosy Civil servants or Church etc who live on a different planet you are not helping. Britain has become lawless but we don’t want State control like Russia etc.