So far it has been a dialogue of the deaf. EU-UK talks have pitted obdurate UK demands to “renegotiate” – effectively tear up – a binding treaty agreement, against an EU willing to discuss only its flexible implementation.
Now we have a Northern Ireland protocol Bill that burns up the vestiges of trust in European capitals, propelling the EU towards a trade war. The Bill would empower ministers to change key parts of the protocol: customs and food safety checks, the application of EU regulations, VAT changes, and the role of the Court of Justice of the EU.
Vice-president of the EU Commission Maros Sefcovic says the union will reactivate suspended legal proceedings against the UK for breaching the terms of the withdrawal agreement. Brussels is also set immediately to suspend co-operation with Britain on all bilateral issues of concern, from fishing to financial services, and halt its participation in the €95 billion Horizon scientific co-operation scheme.
If the Bill is enacted the union will impose targeted tariffs on British exports, potentially opening a trade war. The Bill is a balancing act – an attempt to reconcile warring Tory factions and in that Boris Johnson has been only partially successful.
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But the legislation is so far-reaching and extreme that it will win the support of the Conservative eurosceptics in the European Research Group. And it appears that Johnson’s dubious “legal opinion” explaining the “legality” of the Bill will have done enough to placate some Tories squeamish about trampling all over the rule of law.
There will not be enough of them to threaten the government’s majority. Johnson is making much of the Bill’s ability to get the Democratic Unionist Party back into government in the North – the basis for the “necessity” legal justification being held out by the government.
But the deal is far from done, and failure to get the party on board will make it more difficult to get the legislation through the House of Lords, an argument the Tories are impressing vigorously on the DUP. Some sources say this will be their precondition ahead of even moving the Bill to the upper house. The Democratic Unionist Party has only described the Bill as “an important step”. “The DUP will judge what constitutes decisive action as we see this Bill progressing,” leader Jeffrey Donaldson said.
Meanwhile, a majority of MLAs have written to Johnson to express their opposition to the Bill. They are also unimpressed by the Bill’s provisions to reframe and neuter the Northern Ireland Assembly’s right to vote in 2024 to retain what will supposedly be then moot, the original protocol. The much-vaunted principle of consent, championed by the Tories and DUP, is expendable if it gets in the way.