Owen Polley: Unionists should not try to deny the scale of the new Irish Sea border

It was difficult to find a single Northern Irish unionist who supported Theresa May’s ‘backstop’, when it was first mooted.
Lorries await checks at Belfast Harbour on January 1. Companies have already suspended Great Britain-NI services. Owen Polley says: "Some unionists felt less strongly about Boris Johnson’s NI Protocol than May’s backstop because they liked him"Lorries await checks at Belfast Harbour on January 1. Companies have already suspended Great Britain-NI services. Owen Polley says: "Some unionists felt less strongly about Boris Johnson’s NI Protocol than May’s backstop because they liked him"
Lorries await checks at Belfast Harbour on January 1. Companies have already suspended Great Britain-NI services. Owen Polley says: "Some unionists felt less strongly about Boris Johnson’s NI Protocol than May’s backstop because they liked him"

Quite rightly, most pro-Union voices argued that her proposed Brexit deal posed a threat to Northern Ireland’s place in the UK, creating barriers and potential barriers that cut us off from our most important market in Great Britain.

Not a few unionists and unionist sympathisers, though, felt less strongly about the Northern Ireland Protocol, negotiated by Boris Johnson, which included most of the backstop’s worst flaws.

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There was no convincing explanation for this volte face, other than they tended to like and trust Johnson more than May. They thought he was ‘their guy’ in a way that they had never felt about the previous prime minister.

Some of this naivety subsided over the past year, as the full consequences of the protocol became apparent. But it exists even now, with a few people claiming that Northern Ireland is getting ‘the best of both worlds’ by remaining effectively in the single market for goods, or arguing that unionists have inadvertently stumbled upon some sort of victory that will work well in the end.

These analyses usually avoid discussing how the protocol will operate in any detail. It seems they’re based largely on a feeling or a hunch, rather than looking at the evidence carefully.

I realise, of course, that it’s dangerous for unionists to be too defeatist or fatalistic about the emerging Irish Sea border.

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Nationalists are quite happy to encourage the idea that Brexit spells the end for the Union. There is no value in unionists making the separatists’ argument for them.

It is not sensible, though, to deny the obvious fact that the protocol is a severe blow that will prevent Northern Ireland and its people from playing a full role in the economic and political life of the UK.

In the News Letter, Sam McBride has reported the ‘dizzying’ amount of new paperwork and processes that hauliers face this year, as they try to keep freight moving into the province and I delved into more detail on the website, CapX.

Boris Johnson’s free trade agreement means that Northern Irish businesses will not have to pay up-front tariffs when they buy goods in Great Britain that are deemed ‘at risk’ of entering the European single market. However, it does not do away with extra bureaucracy that traders face when they send products from GB to NI.

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While the big supermarkets have a short ‘grace period’ to get used to the rules, they will still have to provide expensive vets’ certificates for each container of groceries arriving in Northern Ireland, as well as facing checks at the ports.

It seems likely that they will eventually recoup these costs by charging more at the check-out. Already, we see empty shelves, as certain products disappear from sale.

In six months time, as things stand, sausages and chilled meats from the mainland will be among the British products that cannot be sold here.

There has been a furore too about the banning of seed potatoes, which many of our chip shops buy from Scotland. And, though the new rules mainly affect businesses, strictly speaking, anybody travelling from the mainland with a packed lunch could find “cheeses with added herbs, sausages with garlic and yoghurts with added fruit” confiscated at the airport, according to the government.

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Already, many courier companies have either suspended services between Great Britain and Ulster, or announced exorbitant new fees. Some companies, like John Lewis and Dunelm, the homeware retailer, have stopped delivering products to customers in Northern Ireland, for the time being at least.

Businesses tend to be good at finding a way to continue trading, so certain services that are disrupted in January may quickly be restored, but, inevitably, some companies will not feel it’s worth their while serving Northern Ireland. At the very least, we are likely to pay more for the same goods than customers in Great Britain.

The private sector is resourceful and business will continue, simply because it has to. Some clever entrepreneurs will probably find opportunities among this unholy mess to make more money. However, it’s simply not credible to deny that the protocol brings with it worry and uncertainty.

It also involves constitutional and political consequences that unionists must challenge. We are being removed from the UK internal market and the fabled ‘all Ireland economy’ that nationalists have long talked up may now become reality.

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Many of the rules and regulations that govern our trade will continue to be determined by Brussels and our natural conduit to the EU will become Dublin.

Strategically, the unionist parties priority for the next few years must be to overturn the Northern Ireland Protocol and realign our economy and its rules with the rest of the UK.

It will be difficult for unionists to point out the issues with the protocol and campaign for its abolition without providing ammunition for nationalists who want to claim that the Union is in its death throes. Unfortunately, though they have to find that balance, because the alternative is permanent estrangement from the rest of the UK.

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