‘Trust’ seems to be one of the key stumbling blocks in improving the operation of the Northern Ireland Protocol

We may be on the cusp of a new agreement between the EU and the UK Government as they seek to resolve problems that were baked into the first version of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

But as the two sides edge forward, it is worth recognising that the Protocol’s terms are only relevant to the law abiding.

This is not some sort of rebellious contempt but, instead, a recognition that operation of the Protocol only affects businesses that operate within the law.

For example, despite the barriers erected to protect the integrity of the EU Single Market and the UK Internal Market, there are few towns or cities anywhere in which illegal drugs can’t be sourced; their purveyors ignoring the rules of import, export, tariffs, phytosanitary controls, and taxes.

As with so many laws, they mainly affect those who choose to be subject to them – trustworthy businesses.

‘Trust’ seems to be one of the key stumbling blocks in improving the operation of the NI Protocol; not so much trust in the Government but in the businesses that are governed by the Protocol. How to ensure that businesses bringing goods into NI are trustworthy; that they will undertake procedures, keep records, declare the minutiae of their business dealings to prove they can be trusted. But is this sort of ‘trust’ earned or conferred, and is it really ‘trust’ if it has to be supported by so much bureaucracy and record-keeping?

We’ve been here before in NI – where conflict over a massive set of complex relationships, laws, jurisdictions, and sovereignty was ultimately resolved by the negotiation of an Agreement that had, at its heart, a massive leap of faith - a negotiated ‘trust’. The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement was an extraordinary mechanism to move NI beyond three decades of destruction, yet without fully codifying the process. Human nature prevailing over human reason; finding ways of making things work as we progressed rather than trying to put an inflexible grid in place at the outset and making everything and everyone fit into it.

Much of the GFA was built on constructive ambiguity, underpinned by a gesture of negotiated ‘trust’. In reaching that agreement, the signatories agreed to widespread trust, including trusting over 400 prisoners, many convicted of murder, to be released early despite decommissioning having been agreed but not yet delivered; ‘trusted’ that they would leave prison and wouldn’t return to violence.

The EU rightly takes credit for the role it has played in the peace process since the signing of the GFA, establishing Peace Funds to assist with moving from where we were to where we needed to be. Vast treasure committed to a process that was largely built on trust.

The approach displayed by the EU, ie to invest, based on trust was the foundation of an entire peace process shows that unprecedented, extraordinary measures can deliver transformational change. Given the reality that the NI Protocol is largely only germane to law-abiding businesses, it is hard to understand why that same spirit - and trust - cannot readily be extended to business.

If the application of human reason demands layers of suffocating bureaucracy and process to be layered onto businesses simply to bring goods into NI, ‘trust’ is clearly absent. Of course, the EU must be able to ensure the integrity of its Single Market, but the challenges of doing this in NI might just be best achieved by the adoption of a meaningful Trusted Trader system, rather than an inflexible bureaucracy.

In the same spirit that allowed us to make extraordinary advances 25 years ago, a generosity of spirit in the adoption of a Trusted Trader system could see law-abiding businesses trusted to operate in a way that can be verified from time to time with a light touch but that doesn’t put up barriers which don’t really need to be there.

We must strive to make sure the Protocol achieves its objectives and operates in a way that honours its own commitment to “impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities”. To transform it into a form of ‘Economic Good Friday Agreement’ in this spirit could ensure that the EU is a key creator of a Prosperity Process that will segue seamlessly from the Peace Process, and turn acrimony into benevolence so businesses can create the jobs and wealth that will solve so many of our deep-seated societal challenges.