Law to overhaul Northern Ireland Protocol has better chance of passing if it protects EU single market

It could possibly be good news that the government has postponed publication of legislation to change the Northern Ireland Protocol (yesterday), if the delay means that it will now include the new UK laws to protect the EU single market that were proposed in the Command Paper issued on July 21 2021.

As urged in a letter published here just a week later (‘Bring in penalties to deter exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland which evade EU standards,’ July 28 2021, see link below), asking ‘why not just go ahead and do that?’ and then use that law ‘to underpin a system of export licences to regulate the carriage of goods out of Northern Ireland into the Irish Republic’.

By now, over ten months later, it could have been amply demonstrated that this rational and correctly focussed alternative to the irrational and obnoxious arrangements laid down in the protocol was both workable and effective in protecting the EU single market from unacceptable goods entering that trickle crossing the land border, equivalent to 0.02% of the EU’s GDP, and did not trigger the feared renewal of republican terrorism.

With such helpful provisions included the bill should stand a much better chance of getting through both the Commons and the Lords, as it would be hard for EU sympathisers to object to a Bill designed to supplement the protocol and reinforce the protection afforded to the EU single market.

Dr DR Cooper, Maidenhead

Letter from 2021: Bring in penalties to deter exports from Northern Ireland to the Republic of Ireland which evade EU standards