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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » By signing the Good Friday Agreement 21 years ago the UK made any subsequent EU exit harder and more dangerous
In a post here last year I highlighted an article by John McTernan, Tony Blair’s former director of political operations, which sought to set out clearly why the Northern Ireland border has been such an issue in the Brexit negotiations. He wrote:
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As regards referendums, I would appreciate it if someone could clarify for me how the EU Referendum comes to be regarded as Holy Writ, whilst those leading to the BA can be ignored.
Personally I regard referendums as essentially advisory, but if they are to be seen as mandatory, why some and not others?
Any other non-Eurozone country would find it massively easier to disentangle themselves.
Say you're a Labour MP in a heavily leave-voting constituency. You're opposed to No Deal but you support Brexit, or want your constituents to think you do.
Jeremy Corbyn has been voted down or not voted on because he obviously didn't have the numbers. Obviously you won't back Ken Clarke or some other Tory grandee who many of your constituents hate with a passion, or a LibDem who your members hate with an even greater passion. Then Sylvia Hermon comes up for a vote. She tells her story about how she joined the UUP after seeing how they put aside partisan differences and compromised for peace, and also mentions that left them and won as an independent after they hooked up with the Tories. She goes on telly and makes a heartfelt appeal to stop No Deal and protect the peace.
Imagine you vote her down and the Troubles kick off again. Do you want that to be *your* responsibility?
Agricultural standards are a major cause of dissension between the US and the EU.
Not sure many such MPs would regard a return to Troubles as being their responsibility, or care if they did. As a point of information however, how many constituencies are there where the local MP's supporters would 'hate Ken Clarke with a passion'? How many such supporters in each?
Quite. And all concerned have been quite prepared to tolerate VAT and duty smuggling across these two different fiscal areas for the past 21 years, as a messy compromise in the name of keeping the peace. Notwithstanding that the criminals profiteering from this are likely highly correlated with the criminals that say they’d murder anyone who tried to perform checks at the border.
So what’s the big deal in also tolerating some further low grade smuggling that arbitrages tariff differentials (slight as they will likely be)? Most of the value will be policed by trusted trader / big firm audits and self declarations form SMEs (the owners of which are already trusted to be law abiding when making their income tax self declarations).
Go on, I dare China (perennial trade law breaker) or the US (committed to peace in Ireland) to sue the UK and EU through the WTO tribunal for improperly policing tariff schedules.
Final component is a common agri area for the island, ideally with Belfast govt as the second key stakeholder but in its absence London.
We’ve entered Wonderland in this debate. It’s really not as intractable a problem as is made out when you look at it with a problem solving hat on rather than with some other agenda.
Yes, I know this position is *gross* hypocrisy. But it being whipped into a frenzy by cretins like Bastani and Jones
It was certainly never spelled out to us, back in 1998, that it would hugely complicate the process of leaving the EU. This seems rather like an insurance company suddenly whipping out the small print, when you make a claim.
Unless there is something behind the scenes (DUP opposition?) or no way to prevent idiots in Parliament amending the legislation (eg to change the NI referendum to a U.K. wide Remain vs Revoke referendum) then why has it not been proposed?
Isn't that the nub of the problem? One side say that NI should have EU standards, the other that it need not have. However both sides say that 'it's a matter of principle'.
The small print is however there, so what's to do? It's figuring pretty big now.
Then again, who'd have thought the EU would develop the way it did?
When the Show Trials begin, we start at the top and work our way down. First up, step forward Herr Jean-Claude Juncker.
He is all over the place on No Deal. He is committed to it, but can't plan for it properly because that would be Project Fear. At the same time terrified of the public knowing what's involved and wanting to be seen as serious about it. He blames Hammond for the No Deal that he supposedly is cool about, even though Hammond voted for it three times and Johnson rejects it.
One minor quibble: popular sovereignty is alien to the English system. It is perfectly familiar to Scots.
No-one has thought about it “in any serious way” subsequently, much to our distress.
The problem is where do we go from there? If we look to have this trade agreement with the US, which will probably take years and depend a lot more on the next US president rather than this one, we are probably going to have to change those rules. The UK Parliament may also want to exercise its vaunted sovereignty and remove or enhance some of the regulations as time goes by.
The point of this, both for NI and the UK as a whole, is that changes in our laws are a future hypothetical on which considered views can be reached and discussions had with the EU about regulatory equivalence. There is no need for any immediate panic. That was the effect of May's transitional agreement but even in its absence the situation remains the same.
Of course there is the question of tariffs. Will the EU choose to apply them (with the inevitable retaliation from us)? That is the question and it turns on us having a FTA with the EU. NI is different from rUK in having a land border with the SM but it is not that different. Exactly the same issues arise from the Channel Tunnel and at Dover.
In short I think that the commitments made in the Belfast Agreement require us to walk a little more cautiously but the choices and options are ultimately the same that we all face.
The problem is that every permutation of Brexit is a downgrade from what we have now. Do we chop off a hand, an arm or just a thumb?
The U.K. government can set regulations for NI independently right? So just have a side letter between the EU and the U.K. where the U.K. agrees to mirror the standards for NI but the rules are set by London
The bulk of Ag trading is done by very few companies anyway
Has anyone with any influence actually proposed it in the real world?
So hopefully one upshot of all this might be the unification of the island of Ireland.
Again.
No doubt Angela and Emmanuel will stoutly fulfil that role later this week.
Again.
Brexit really is a solution searching for a problem.
But in any case there's no time at this point due to Boris's October deadline self-bondage.
I tend to agree that our regulations are likely to mimic/copy EU regulations for the foreseeable future. In some restricted areas, such as financial services, the opposite is likely to be true with the EU copying what we do. If that is so leaving really ought to be a lot easier than some are seeking to make it.
It seems the SA and Essex spin bowler, Simon Harmer, will be eligible to play for England next year. On his form for the past three seasons, he would be a shoo-in. As a right arm finger spinner, he's just what England need, and since he's a pretty decent bat too he would make it easier for them to play two spinners if they wish.
A reason to be cheerful this morning!
Why did RoI join the EEC on the same day as the UK? To avoid the problems we have been discussing for 3 years. Any treaty which brought NI and RoI politically closer was very obviously going to "complicate the process of the EU".
They're more keen on petrol smuggling and drug trafficking than putting their own lives on the line, these days.
The transition period and UK-wide backstop are a way of achieving that, as proposed by the UK Government, without resorting to a hard border which no-one wishes to see.
Or do the potential rights of the Northern Irish to enjoy the taste of chlorinated chicken in the next couple of years somehow override those considerations?
https://twitter.com/JohnRentoul/status/1163707665492652033?s=19
Struggling to think of a third.
Better to remain than cling to the responsibilities of membership whilst abandoning the rights.
The EU and Irish position is disingenuous. The Withdrawal Agreement has failed to pass the Commons three times. Whilst the PM is responsible for trying to come up with an alternative, the refusal of the EU to countenance any change whilst claiming to be always ready to talk is plain lunacy.
The backstop is meant to prevent a hard border but has done sterling[sp] work making it likelier than ever. You might as well have a dog-deterring ball of aniseed.
As for the Good Friday Agreement being entangled with EU membership, it's not the first time PMs have been complacent or short-sighted and narrow-minded when it comes to constitutional tinkering or a referendum. The problem isn't that voters had the temerity to disagree with the political class, it's that the political class delayed so long before asking, in the face of the Lisbon referendum manifesto promise.
And so we're here. Where every credible option has significant problems attached.
If we don't sign up to GDPR we cut ourselves out of information flows out of the EU. We won't have any influence over that, even if we wanted to because we are no longer a member state with a near blocking vote.
The violence has continued at a low level with murders in every year since 1998. Lyra McKee was the the latest. Add in punishment beatings, intimidation and racketeering and you have an imperfect peace.
This has been going on for 20 years, the sudden interest by people who previously didnt give a toss is merely Brexit related and will quickly disappear when Brexit is done one way or the other,
https://www.thedetail.tv/articles/the-cruel-peace-killings-in-northern-ireland-since-the-good-friday-agreement
I think one can reasonably expect MPs and parties not to insist on using stopping No Deal as a means of party advantage, which is why I oppose both Labour "only one way" insistence and LibDem and rebel Tory "anything but you" insistence. Either we think No Deal is a disaster or we don't - if it we do, we will all need to swallow stuff to stop it. But we need to avoid pretending to find a perfect solution which doesn't work but enables us to reject all others that might, and I'm afraid Clarke's plan is one that wouldn't work. Hermon plus early election might.
On BBC2 last night at 9pm there was a programme on the murder of Mountbatte and family and friends on a boat and the murder of 18 British paratroopers in Northern Ireland on the same day in one of the costliest days of the troubles and an emphasis on the importance of the Good Friday Agreement, including when the Queen met McGuinness.
However Northern Ireland was created in the first place as a substantial proportion of the Irish population in the North wanted to stay British rather than join the Free State and as long as that remains the case their wishes should be respected