First Minister Arlene Foster.First Minister Arlene Foster.
First Minister Arlene Foster.

Arlene Foster, Baroness Kate Hoey and Ben Habib: The NI Protocol offends the Belfast Agreement and the people of Northern Ireland

In a 20-second statement in the Commons two days ago, the Prime Minister revealed a complete lack of understanding of both the Belfast Agreement and the Northern Irish Protocol.

He declared that the EU’s attempt to invoke Article 16 of the Protocol breached the spirit and letter of the Belfast Agreement by seeking to put a border on the island of Ireland. He was totally wrong.

The Belfast Agreement does not prohibit a border on the island. Indeed it makes repeated references to it. All that the Belfast Agreement requires is a removal of security installations and a reduction in armed forces to a level compatible with a peaceful society.

The false notion that a customs border on the island of Ireland would breach the Belfast Agreement is one put about during Brexit negotiations by the EU, Ireland and factions of remain in the UK, including members of our then government in order to frustrate, undermine and damage the British position in those negotiations. They succeeded.

No, the real breach of the Belfast Agreement is by the very existence of the Protocol. On page 3 of the Agreement under Constitutional Issues it states:

“….the present wish of a majority of the people of Northern Ireland, freely exercised and legitimate, is to maintain the Union and, accordingly, that Northern Ireland’s status as part of the United Kingdom reflects and relies upon that wish; and that it would be wrong to make any change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people…”

The Protocol, which puts a border down the Irish Sea, leaves Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs union, subject to swathes of EU law and the supreme court of the European Union, is an offense to the Belfast Agreement and the people of Northern Ireland.

When the Prime Minister declared in the Telegraph on 12 September that the Internal Market Bill was vital legislation to put right the offending aspects of the Protocol, it seemed he did understand it. But that legislation fell by the wayside without explanation.

The Joint Committee of the EU and UK charged with interpreting and implementing the Protocol has done nothing to make it compliant with the Belfast Agreement. It would not be possible to do so. Every aspect of the Protocol offends the Agreement.

The British government’s answer to the EU was Michael Gove’s letter to Maros Sefcovic, vice-President of the European Commission, of 3 February. His letter, which asks for the continuation of certain export derogations, entirely fails to appreciate the depth of the problems associated with the Protocol.

The answer to the Protocol lies in the Protocol itself; the very provision which the EU illegally sought to invoke on 29 January and to which the Prime Minister referred when revealing his ignorance. It is Article 16.

This article enables the UK unilaterally to take safeguard measures to restrict the Protocol if it should cause “serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties”. The Protocol is an affront to Northern Ireland. Its existence undermines the Belfast Agreement. The new Irish Sea border created by it has caused material difficulties for the people of Northern Ireland. The constitutional implications and ill effects of being subject to EU laws and courts is self-evident. Faced with these facts the only correct course of action for our government is to invoke Article 16 and use it to suspend the Protocol – permanently.

The Prime Minister must now assert British Parliamentary sovereignty and move to protect the people of Northern Ireland, their status as equal British citizens in the union of the United Kingdom.

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