According to the FT talks on improving the NI protocol are under way. Although if they are to succeed it seems fairly obvious that the UK government will have to reverse its unilateral and illegal changes to the protocol. It did this last time it broke the law and found that it got in the way of cooperation, who knew?
But the talks on finding ways of stopping vets inspections, keeping goods flowing, allowing soil on GB plants sold in NI etc, all come down to one thing. The UK will have to move closer to accepting EU standards.
This is of course what it should have done in the first place, they are perfectly good standards, reasonable and balanced; not least because the UK helped create them. Any possible benefits (if they exist at all) from introducing almost identical standards are more than wiped out by the fact that they aren’t EU compatible.
HM Treasury knows this full well, its analysis of the costs of Brexit showed regulatory gains to be minute, especially in comparison to costs of border friction. The Treasury has of course been prevented from repeating that analysis, a sure sign that this Brexit government knows exactly how right the first report was.
And it didn’t even take count of the potential for new unrest in Northern Ireland, that genie is now out of the bottle. Will new rules about soil on daffodil bulbs get it back in? I doubt it. Not least because this government deliberately betrayed the unionists; boasted about the new deal, ignored the warnings and gloated about the brilliance of its negotiations. The DUP are not the brightest bunch but they have an hyper-sensitive awareness of any betrayal, not least because there is always another more ultra-unionist waiting to take their place. Oiling the border doesn’t change those facts.
https://jonty.substack.com/
LOL Selective memory loss syndrome? Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol was first unilaterally envoked by the EU (no matter how briefly). Once the EU had envoked the unilateral clause it meant the UK were not the first to envoke it unilaterally as it allows and a precedent had been set by your beloved EU. As far as I can see it is a two way clause either party can envoke it as need permits.