Editorial: Boris Johnson is right to push for continued passage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

The ex prime minister Boris Johnson has intervened in the Irish Sea border row.​

Mr Johnson believes the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill should continue its passage through Westminster.

This is a position that the News Letter has been making for many months. The NI Protocol Bill is by no means a perfect piece of legislation and it does not scrap the trade barrier between Great Britain and the province. But it would give UK ministers sweeping powers to disapply parts of the protocol.

Many Brexiteers and unionists have, in many respects rightly, expressed dismay as to the way in which the NI Protocol Bill is an enabling act rather than guaranteed change. But it will be far better sitting alongside a deal than a situation in which there is no change to the primacy of EU trade laws and the UK agrees to drop the bill. The EU would revert to a fresh chorus of ‘you agreed this’.

A major constitutional problem for NI is the possibility of increasing divergence between NI and GB over time, and the bill would give London power to help avoid things going that far.

Is it too late for this solution? Is it now only fantasy? Perhaps it is, given that Mr Sunak has it seems adopted a much more moderate negotiating position than his two predecessors.

Critics might, with good reason, mock Mr Johnson’s new found toughness, given that he signed the disastrous protocol in 2019. But even if he is being cynical now it does not mean he is wrong.

Saturday’s essay in this paper by the haulier Peter Summerton (see link below) was deeply alarming and his fear that vast amounts of paperwork might still be needed for GB to NI moves after the likely coming protocol deal, even if the checks are reduced.

Let us hope that is wrong because unionists cannot be expected to endorse such an outcome. Meanwhile, Mr Sunak has been right to delay any announcement.

Peter Summerton: NI Protocol deal could make things worse by leading to fewer checks but more documentation