Canon Ian Ellis: Trust has slipped away amid fall-out from Northern Ireland protocol

These certainly were, and remain, at the heart of the churches’ concerns for the post-Brexit future on this island.

Naturally, in the lead-up to the referendum it was not for the churches to advocate a particular vote. However, a discussion document published by the European Affairs committee connected to the churches’ umbrella group Churches in Ireland Connecting in Christ (CICC) did not hesitate to highlight what its members saw as significant matters in the UK-Ireland context arising from a potential Leave vote, including:

• The need for a withdrawal agreement that would mitigate trade difficulties;

• The future of the UK-Ireland Common Travel Area;

• The question of the free movement of labour;

• The Republic’s loss of an important “political ally” within the EU; and

• The danger of political alienation between the UK and Ireland and possible jeopardising of the Belfast Agreement.

Whichever side of the Brexit issue one takes, we are where we are, and maintaining good relationships all round is of the utmost importance.

Trust, of course, is fundamental to those good relationships. Yet trust has been slipping considerably over the issue of the Irish Sea customs border.

When on March 3rd the UK government announced it was going to extend the grace periods for Irish Sea border checks in order to address what Lord Frost described as “the direct and often disproportionate impact” of aspects of the NI protocol, European Commission Vice-President Maroš Šefčovič said that the move undermined the necessary “mutual trust”.

First Minister Arlene Foster has viewed the EU as having taken a “very belligerent approach” to the protocol difficulties, “disproportionately” protecting the EU single market.

However, the Republic’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, suggested that the UK “cannot simply be trusted” in the negotiations. That was a shockingly cutting comment. In the Belfast Agreement, east-west matters as much as north-south. That is the all-important balance that is at stake. Mr Coveney should show greater understanding for others’ sensitivities.

Trust has been greatly damaged by so much disagreement over the protocol, including the EU’s application of Article 16 over vaccines in January, however briefly. The Institute for Government’s Jess Sargeant commented after the EU’s swift U-turn on the vaccines debacle that while the row had passed, the damage had been done. She wrote that the UK and the EU had to focus on “how to rebuild trust”.

Amid all of this has come the reported announcement from the Loyalist Communities Council, in a letter to the Prime Minister, that the main loyalist paramilitary groups have temporarily withdrawn their support for the Belfast Agreement in the circumstances, while nonetheless advocating peaceful and democratic opposition to the protocol.

The protocol places Northern Ireland within the EU’s single market for goods, leaving the Province subject to relevant EU legislation without proper representation, and clearly does hinder the free flow of trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The EU has now initiated what it describes as “a formal infringement process against the United Kingdom” on account of the extension of the protocol grace periods, describing the protocol as “the only way to protect the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement and to preserve peace and stability, while avoiding a hard border on the island of Ireland and maintaining the integrity of the EU single market”.

However, a challenge in law to the protocol itself had already been joined by one of the very architects of the Belfast Agreement, Nobel Peace Prize winner Lord Trimble.

The disproportionate nature of the protocol’s requirements becomes crystal clear when one considers that, as reported by this newspaper on March 5, Denis McMahon, permanent secretary at the Department of Agriculture, said “the documentary checks, according to the systems, completed so far would represent one-fifth of the equivalent documentation right across the EU”.

Mike Nesbitt MLA, speaking at Stormont on March 1, proposed an approach to which the UK-EU joint committee would well give more than passing consideration.

He referred to the EU view that under the existing protocol Northern Ireland, being in both the UK and EU internal markets, has “the best of both worlds”, and suggested that this might be extended to the Republic.

He added: “We could then return to the trading arrangements in the UK and between the UK and Ireland that applied last year and a decade ago. “There would be no checks at our ports and airports for goods that may or may not end up in the EU; there would be checks at the Republic’s ports and airports for goods that are definitely heading to continental Europe. By doing so, the EU would take back control of its inspections, we would solve all unionist objections, and the Republic would benefit. It would be a win, win, win.”

Trust will be difficult to restore unless there is a satisfactory resolution of the protocol issue, and if such a three-way ‘win’ were found it would certainly be restorative for now seriously damaged relationships.

• Canon Ian Ellis is an ex-editor of The Church of Ireland Gazette

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