Letter: Forget seven tests over reform of the Northern Ireland Protocol even three, here is just one

Owen Polley reduces the DUP's seven tests to three (Northern Ireland Protocol deal is likely to leave unionists disappointed, February 20, see link below), but I would go further and set just one test:

‘Will the UK be expected to operate export controls on goods being despatched across the land border into the Irish Republic?’

Because about half of those goods will have been produced in Northern Ireland, and so will not have been subjected to EU import checks at a point of entry; it follows that without UK export controls to protect the EU single market from unsuitable items being carried across the border all goods production within the province will have to continue to be governed by EU single market laws.

Which in turn will require the EU Commission to impose, and over time amend, those EU single market laws, with the EU court as the ultimate arbiter.

So far there is no indication that Rishi Sunak is pressing for that – or indeed any other – change to the protocol, which would effectively return the customs and regulatory border to where it belongs, coincident with the international frontier.​

​Dr D R Cooper, Maidenhead, Berkshire

Owen Polley: Northern Ireland Protocol deal is likely to leave unionists disappointed