Every year the Backstop operates, the unity of the UK will weaken further
(Photo by Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Will the government find a satisfactory solution to the backstop, so that Brexiteers and the DUP can support Theresa May’s draft Withdrawal Agreement? There are mixed reports about how much progress is being made and there are signs that it has not yet admitted the extent of the problems with the Northern Ireland protocol.
In the Sunday Telegraph, Jeremy Hunt and Andrea Leadsom wrote a column acknowledging that the House of Commons has signalled “it would not be acceptable for a sovereign country to be trapped in a backstop against its will.” That is of course true and the absence of an exit mechanism is a major concern with the draft agreement.
That said, it’s worth remembering that, according to Olly Robbins, British negotiators view the backstop as a ‘bridge’ to a trade deal with the EU, rather than a safety net. The idea is to agree something permanent that includes features of this deal. Presumably that includes the UK maintaining close customs and regulatory links with Brussels.
By this interpretation, the aspects of the agreement that appal its opponents most are among the long term goals of Theresa May and her team.
Whether or not the country is trapped in the backstop “against its will”, an even bigger issue is that Northern Ireland would be treated completely differently to Great Britain, with new economic and political barriers dividing the United Kingdom.
Some of these barriers would arise only if the rest of the UK moves away from customs and regulatory alignment with the EU. Significantly, others would appear as soon as the backstop is enacted. Northern Ireland will be part of a new customs territory that includes the UK and the EU, but it will remain a full member of Brussels’ customs union, while Great Britain will leave. In his current legal advice, the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, envisages British firms filling in customs declarations, in order to ship goods to Ulster. There are discussions about their exact form and extent, but regulatory checks will be required on shipments crossing the Irish Sea.
Unless the government’s renegotiation ensures that these aspects of the backstop are dropped, or, at the very least, that they will be strictly time-limited, the backstop will represent a dangerous infringement of British sovereignty and a threat to the integrity of the UK. Every year that it operates will draw Northern Ireland closer to the Republic of Ireland and weaken its links with Great Britain.
The current Dublin government is fairly open about its ambitions to speak for the province, and this week Leo Varadkar unveiled former SDLP leader, Mark Durkan, as one of Fine Gael’s candidates in the forthcoming European parliamentary election. The Republic’s governing party intends to run Durkan in the Dublin constituency, but he is charged with reflecting the “interests and perspective of Northern Ireland”.
If the backstop is enacted, the Irish government will inevitably become Northern Ireland’s conduit to Brussels, in the absence of any other form of representation there. That arrangement is likely to damage political ties that bind the province to the rest of the UK and it is designed to protect a largely fictional “all-Ireland economy”, though Ulster trades in far greater volumes with Great Britain.
Viewed from outside Northern Ireland, none of this may seem important. The province is on the island of Ireland and has close historical, cultural and social links with the Republic, so why shouldn’t these be recognised in a distinct arrangement, as the UK leaves the EU?
One difficulty is that none of this will be viewed as an end point by Irish nationalists and republicans. Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom rests on the ‘principle of consent’, which was affirmed by the Good Friday Agreement but there are already ceaseless attempts to undermine the consequences of that democratic choice.
Brexit has increased the intensity of a campaign to imply that “rights and equality” require the British and Irish states and British and Irish citizenship to be on the same footing in Northern Ireland. The backstop could take us quickly to the point where the principle of consent is all but meaningless and the province’s place in the UK is little more than a technicality.
At the same time, Scottish separatists hope that Northern Ireland will be treated as differently as possible after Brexit. They’ll try to link their own grievances to that outcome, in order to push for greater autonomy and, ultimately, independence.
It could be that, to secure some form of Brexit, the rest of the UK is prepared to sacrifice Northern Ireland, which has proved so troublesome in the past and has been the most intractable problem in negotiations with the EU. Tim Shipman, the Political Editor of the Sunday Times, has articulated this opinion, tweeting most people in Great Britain “don’t give a monkeys” about the province and “the solution (to Brexit is) to lose NI”.
If that’s the broader view, then it should be stated and debated openly. Otherwise, any deal that does not nullify the backstop is the worst possible outcome for keeping the UK together and opposition to May’s agreement should be viewed through that lens.
