Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney blame Brexit voters, yet they have culpability too for the Irish Sea border

Congratulations to the News Letter for continuing to highlight the harms being inflicted on Northern Ireland as a result of the EU protocol.

(The editorial can be read here: ‘Protocol an even bigger disaster than we feared,’ February 3)

It should never have been signed.

It weakens Northern Ireland’s constitutional status and breaches the consent principle which is at the heart of the Belfast Agreement.

Simon Coveney and his allies are now trying to blame those who voted for Brexit as if they should have foreseen how Dublin and Brussels would weaponise the border and Mrs May surrender. Previously, Enda Kenny’s administration had been working with the UK to develop a light-touch surveillance system on the real boundary.

Leo Varadkar and Mr Coveney jettisoned this work, adopting instead a high-risk tactic which they hoped would wreck Brexit. The responsibility is theirs.

During the negotiations, the UK did not ask for any border controls; but the EU insisted on scrupulous controls, ostensibly to protect the sanctity of its single market.

The EU can be flexible when it wants, but chose to dig in on this issue.

The UK should have left it to the EU to decide how to patrol its own frontier. If Dublin genuinely believed that a few CCTV cameras would provoke an upsurge in republican terrorism, it should have committed itself to working with the UK to maintain law and order.

Alternatively, the EU could have decided to apply controls between the British Isles and mainland Europe.

The British Isles have a long-established Common Travel Area (CTA). London and Dublin affirmed in May 2019 that this would continue after Brexit; Mr Coveney signed up for Ireland. This enables Irish people to enter and remain in the UK (and once resident to vote) without restriction, unlike other EU citizens.

Why could similarly exceptional arrangements not have been applied to goods? Would this not have reinforced the Belfast agreement by promoting cooperation north/south and east/west?

It would certainly have avoided customs duties and regulatory barriers between Britain and Ireland; removed other obstacles to east-west trade; reflected the reality that the UK is Ireland’s principal trading partner in Europe; and avoided the need to inspect goods twice which are travelling between Ireland and Europe via Great Britain.

Looking ahead, Michael Gove co-chairs a joint committee with the EU, whose role is to resolve problems over the implementation of the Withdrawal Agreement.

Mr Gove now acknowledges that there is a problem requiring serious and urgent attention. At the least, the wording of the protocol must be clarified and the EU must work with the UK government in good faith to repair the damage.

Credit is due to Jim Allister who beat the DUP to the chase last week. Their statement as printed in Wednesday’s News Letter is welcome.

The electorate will judge them by their actions over the coming months.

Bill Smith, Belfast BT15

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