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When it comes to Northern Ireland, there is rarely a single story. Complexities of post-Brexit trading arrangements were overlaid on existing political and social ambiguities in the form of a Northern Ireland Protocol agreed in 2019, implemented in January 2021, and increasingly polarising since then. A United States political community laying bipartisan ownership to the Good Friday Belfast Agreement confirming the end of the troubles in 1998 became increasingly involved, as did others to questioning the UK’s international relations. Movements of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland were subject to controls, while for UK exports to the EU as a whole, threatened trade wars caused business uncertainty across the UK.
On February 27 the UK and EU announced a deal billed as the Windsor Framework which sought to resolve many of the issues. Concepts such as Green and Red lanes, and a Stormont Brake, entered into political debate, as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak hailed a success that many believed was being oversold. Goods movements were to face fewer barriers, local politicians have greater involvement. There were broader developments, a resurrection of talks for the UK to acceded to the Horizon science research programme, likely accession to the Trans Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Yet, when focusing on Northern Ireland, rather in keeping with its history this is far from the end of the story. Unionist politicians have yet to decide if the deal is sufficient to lift their veto on the devolved government, and implementation of complex texts leaves much to be decided that could cause many issues.
Northern Ireland and Brexit has become an almost impossible subject to cover comprehensively, though books have already been written seriously (Brexit & Ireland by Tony Connelly) and somewhat less so (I am the Border, So I am, by a twitter account representing a land border in Ireland that may have to return to work). Mixing at times highly technical trade discussions with devolved, national and international politics, it spans a range of subjects beyond most individuals. Indefatigable souls such as Queens University Professor Katy Hayward, aforementioned RTE journalist and author Connelly, and Northern Ireland government’s man in Brussels Aodhan Connolly will doubtless have understanding across the piece, this blog attempts to examine just some of the important facets.
A key starting point for any discussion on Northern Ireland and Brexit is that the heart of the Good Friday / Belfast Agreement of 1998 was an ambiguity over identity between nationalists looking towards Ireland and unionists seeing themselves an integral part of the UK. Only just manageable within an EU that removed borders, a Brexit which expects UK customs and regulatory divergence inevitably meant complexity and probably political turmoil. The rough framework adopted remains that Northern Ireland remains in the EU single market for goods to avoid a land border alienating one community, with various easements to soften any Irish Sea border alienating the other, and outside it for services. The Windsor Framework makes considerable moves on top of the Protocol to ease goods movements from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but EU law is retained, and it is to be expected that there will be ongoing issues at various levels that will need to be managed. ...
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