Brexit: What exactly IS Article 16 – and why has it provoked such fury?

It is a clause embedded in the Northern Ireland Protocol – a core bit of the Brexit treaty – which allows for some unspecified special measures to be taken in the event of post-Brexit headaches.

Here is the EU’s explanation for its move: EU link to its reasons for invoking Article 16 mysteriously disappears

Here is exactly what Article 16 says:

It reads: “If the application of this Protocol leads to serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist, or to diversion of trade, the Union or the United Kingdom may unilaterally take appropriate safeguard measures.

“Such safeguard measures shall be restricted with regard to their scope and duration to what is strictly necessary in order to remedy the situation.

“Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol.

“If a safeguard measure taken by the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, in accordance with paragraph 1 creates an imbalance between the rights and obligations under this Protocol, the Union or the United Kingdom, as the case may be, may take such proportionate rebalancing measures as are strictly necessary to remedy the imbalance.

“Priority shall be given to such measures as will least disturb the functioning of this Protocol.”

In other words, the Protocol does give the UK or the EU latitude to basically rejig their relationship with Northern Ireland if there are “economic” or “societal” headaches that arise from Brexit.

The thing is, unionists have been demanding for weeks that the London government must invoke Article 16 as a way of saving Northern Ireland from the Irish Sea border which sprang into being on January 1.

But despite their repeated pleas, NI Secretary Brandon Lewis – and the Johnson government in general – have resisted doing so, despite mounting evidence of NI consumers not being able to buy certain products from Great Britain, or even arrange shipments from multinational titans like Amazon.

Click here: Brexit friction: Woman ‘unable to even move home from GB to Co Antrim’

Click here: Ian Paisley: Unionists need to drop wrist-slashing pessimism over Brexit

READ the News Letter’s coverage of this week’s previous big story – the latest IRA man’s funeral taking place amid the Covid crisis:

Click here: McCourt funeral just latest of six republican send-offs during Covid crisis

Click here: Pressure mounts on SF as Foster demands party say who was at IRA man’s funeral

Click here: Late IRA man Eamonn McCourt ‘killed one of his own comrades by mistake’

Click here: SF issues press release about farm conditions in India amid clamour for Londonderry funeral answers

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