London agreed this Irish Sea border betrayal so let it force its implementation

There are certain to be checks and some tariffs on goods coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. This is an inevitable consequence of NI being left in the EU single market and, in effect, the EU customs territory.

And it is distinctly possible that there will be paperwork going the other way, from the Province to the mainland.

Movements in this direction were, we were told, going to be unfettered but the EU has other ideas and expects there to be export declaration forms.

An extraordinary feature of this border is the minimal opposition to it within Northern Ireland.

Business groups which combined as one to support a backstop that said there must be no land border in Ireland, not even CCTV, and so helped to ensure that the border shifted to the Irish Sea, have grumbled about the internal UK border but no more than that.

We have been severed from by far our biggest trade market without a whimper of protest.

And, as our political editor explained last week, the Whitehall department DEFRA did not, as the BBC reported, order Edwin Poots to put infrastructure for the coming internal UK border. It wrote to his civil servant to say its “view is that it is now the role of your department” to commence the checking facilities.

We reported last week that the civil servant then told Mr Poots that he, the civil servant, was required press ahead with the procurement. If that is so, we need to remember that civil servants do not decide such things, ministers do.

And if things are as reported, it would be helpful to learn why Mr Poots did not issue a ministerial direction to force officials not to proceed with this reprehensible arrangement.

London agreed this disastrous border betrayal, so let it now force its implementation.

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