The trucks pass safely through the port of Larne in Northern Ireland.
Photographer: Mark Marlow / Bloomberg
Photographer: Mark Marlow / Bloomberg
Boris Johnson has threatened to suspend parts of the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland as the dispute intensifies following the European Union’s threat to impose border controls in a spit on the vaccine supply.
The Prime Minister responded on Wednesday in Parliament to the claims that he “betrayed” the province by accepting the verification of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
“We will do everything we can to do it, either legislatively or indeed by invoking Article 16 of the Protocol, to make sure there are no barriers down to the Irish Sea,” Johnson told the House of Commons.
Traders have faced disruption to the transport of goods across the province from the rest of the UK due to new customs controls and documents required in the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol agreed as part of the Brexit settlement with the EU just over a month ago. Article 16 is an emergency trigger that allows either party to intervene if the application of the Protocol creates “serious economic, social or environmental difficulties”.
Tensions over Northern Ireland have risen significantly in recent weeks, especially since the European Commission announced it would activate Article 16 in control vaccine exports to Northern Ireland – blinding the British and Irish governments and angering unionist political leaders.
Even if the EU acknowledged that its decision was wrong and withdrew within hours, the disaster risks reopening one of the most controversial aspects of the Brexit negotiations.
‘Betrayed’
“I speak for all my constituents today when I tell you that the Protocol has betrayed us and made us sense just like the foreigners in our country “, he told Union Pais, Democratic Unionist, to Johnson in the House of Commons.
Under the Brexit agreement signed by Johnson, Northern Ireland – unlike the rest of the United Kingdom – remained in the EU customs union and in the single market to avoid both the creation of a visible border with the Republic of Ireland and the resumption of decades of sectarian conflict. .
Instead, goods face complex controls as they cross the Irish Sea. But to ease the pain, not all controls were introduced when Britain’s post-Brexit transition period ended on 31 December. Even so, companies complained of delays and disruptions while transporting goods from one part of the United Kingdom to another while port staff faced threats of violence.
Photographer: Simon Dawson / Bloomberg
In a powerful letter seen by Bloomberg condemning EU action on vaccines, British Cabinet Minister Michael Gove called on European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic to extend the grace periods covering trade in certain goods until 2023. The two The men are meeting on Wednesday afternoon with the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Northern Ireland.
“Serious error”
In the letter, Gove described the Commission’s decision as a “grave error”, adding that “feelings of disappointment were particularly acute, given the concerns that had already arisen about the practical functioning of the protocol and its economic and societal effects”.
Updating the British Parliament on Tuesday, Gove was blamed for the damage he thought the EU would have done, saying the European Commission in Brussels had “made a bar”.
“The last few days have seen an increase in community tension,” Gove said. “We will work in the coming days to remedy the difficulties on the ground.”
Under the terms of the Brexit agreement, the authorities were granted grace periods for checks on batches between the UK and Northern Ireland on supermarkets and their suppliers, chilled meats, medicines and parcel deliveries. Extending them until 2023 would take action beyond the next elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly scheduled for May 2022.
“Different space”
Prior to appearing in Parliament on Wednesday, Johnson held talks with Northern Ireland Prime Minister Arlene Foster. Paisley said the meeting was positive.
“The prime minister is in a very different space,” Paisley said. “He was blinded,” he added. “Now he’s moved away from that awful language I saw as just ‘tooth problems.'”
EU and UK officials have temporarily suspended some controls at the region’s ports after what the Mid & East Antrim Council called “an increase in sinister and threatening behavior”. This included “local graffiti that refers to growing tensions around the Northern Ireland Protocol and describes port staff as targets”.
The EU told employees working in Northern Ireland not to go to work on Tuesday, a day after the region stopped physical inspections of animal products in the ports of Belfast and Larne for security reasons. Document checks will continue and the measure will be kept under control, the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture said in a statement.
– With the assistance of Emily Ashton, Peter Flanagan and Tim Ross