Northern Ireland Protocol latest: 'The EU is giving us a punishment beating and is enjoying it' says Brexiteer businessman

Brexiteer businessman Ben Habib was speaking at the end of an extremely eventful week when it comes to the Protocol.

Firstly, he and a coterie of fellow unionists brought their arguments against the Protocol to the Supreme Court in London in an attempt to kill off the Irish Sea border through the courts.

At the same time the EU delivered warm, conciliatory messages to the UK about the “constructive" nature of their relationship…while simultaneously unveiling a plan to punish the UK if it does not comply with the Protocol.

Mr Habib said that the grim situation now facing unionists has been allowed to unfold thanks to a Westminster government which has been “inconsistent” in the face of EU resolve over many years.

He told the News Letter: “I think the EU is quite comfortable at the moment, because what they see is the Protocol is doing a huge amount of damage to the UK.

"We’re ripping ourselves apart over the Protocol because we haven’t got a government that can sort it out.

"And ultimately that’s the purpose of the Protocol. I was in European Parliament, and it was openly said that the price of Brexit would be Northern Ireland.

"And they’re enjoying this. This is a punishment beating. This is to show every other member state in the EU that they must not leave – this is what happens.

"It’s a punishment beating. And it’s no skin off their nose to play it long at the moment, because they can just watch the show."

As to how we have reached this scenario, he said “the British government has been weak and blown in the wind – it hasn’t been consistent at all in its position about the Protocol”.

On Thursday, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said: “I’m glad that today our talks with London are marked by a new, more pragmatic spirit because the EU and the UK are still members of the same extended family, even if we no longer live in the same house...

“I can promise you that whenever the EU sits down with our British friends, we will do so with an honest heart and an open mind.”

But only the previous evening Fine Gael MEP Sean Kelly, an EU trade envoy, said the bloc had struck “an agreement to empower the EU with greater legal ability to protect EU rights, including a possible sanctions mechanism” against the UK.

This was in reaction to the Tory government “tabling legislation to take unilateral measures against an agreement we reached only two years ago” – a barely-veiled reference to the Protocol Bill which currently sits before the House of Lords.

The idea behind the bill is that it would grant the government powers to basically rip up the Protocol unilaterally (though whether the government would ever actually use these powers is another matter).

As to what the EU’s “sanctions” might mean, a source close to the talks indicated to the News Letter indicated it includes quotas and limits on exports, halting of preferential trade arrangements, and the imposition of conditions on aircraft.

This approach, Mr Habib said, is “typical EU – bullying and trying to coax us into conceding”.

He also said that, even if they lose the legal case they have presented to the Supreme Court – arguing that the Protocol violates the legally-enshrined place of NI in the Union – he and his fellow appellants have been “vindicated already”, both “politically and constitutionally”.

This is because, during the government’s counter-arguments to their bid for a judicial review into the Protocol, barrister Tony McGleenan told the court that the Act of Union (the 1800 treaty binding Ireland and GB) has been partially “disapplied”.

Mr McGleenan KC insisted this was not the same as “repealing” the Act of Union, though.

He told the court on Thursday: “We're not saying there has been an express repeal of the Act of Union.

"We're not saying there has been an implied repeal of the Act of Union – or even Article 6 of the Act of Union [which is meant to put Ireland and GB on ‘the same footing in respect of trade’].”

Instead, he said, the current arrangements serve only to “disapply such provisions of Article 6 of the Act of Union as are inconsistent with the Protocol”.

He said: “I don't accept it's repealed.

"The words are clear and unambiguous, and their effect is irresistable.

"There's much misunderstanding. There is a view abroad clearly that the Act of Union has been repealed or indeed subjugated (which is another unfortunate use of language).”

Instead Article 6 has been “disapplied” on what might well be a temporary basis.

"Article 6 has not been erased from statute books. Article 6 is intact,” he said.

"It's entirely wrong to say there's been a breach of the Act of Union or there's been a repeal of the Act of Union.

"And much of what follows in the rest of the argument flows from that fundamental misconception.

”[There is] no serious sense in which there has been a profound constitutional change and the argument presented by the appellants is seriously overplayed.

"The idea there has been a de facto termination of the Union is not a tenable proposition.”

Instead there was merely this “modest disapplication, subject to democratic process, mandated by parliament”.

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