A helpful intervention from the ex Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith against the Northern Ireland Protocol, and the constitutional damage that it has done

In one sense, Iain Duncan Smith calling for Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to be invoked is of limited consequence (see link below).

The former Tory leader was a eurosceptic long before Brexit, and in any event as a backbencher can speak freely now.

Also, he is one of many Conservative MPs who failed to stand up against the disastrous NI Protocol at the time in 2019. Such politicians say, fairly, that Theresa May conceded the core problem of different treatment for Northern Ireland and Great Britain in 2017, and that parliamentary arithmetic when Boris Johnson took over made the protocol the only option.

But if so why, for example, were medicines not removed from the protocol’s orbit then, or any of the other things the EU now seems prepared to concede?

Nonetheless, Mr Duncan Smith’s intervention is very welcome. It is received wisdom that the UK will not get its July command paper demands of reform to the Irish Sea border. That paper, while very good, left the protocol fundamentally in place, with resulting constitutional damage.

If we are only going to get, say, half of the command paper demands, then that leaves the prospect of the NI Protocol being overwhelmingly in place after a possible coming UK/EU deal.

This is an appalling thought, so it is helpful that we have former Tory leaders speaking bluntly in defence of Northern Ireland’s Union with Great Britain.

Ex Tory leader: The place of NI within the UK is looking more and more precarious due to the Protocol

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