It is not the honeyed words of the Government’s Command Paper which matter but the legal consequences of their mere statutory instruments.
The oversell in the Command Paper is illustrated by the fact that it found it impossible to admit to print that the Supreme Court held the effect of the Protocol is to put Article 6 of the Act(s) of Union into suspension (paras 48-51). Likewise, its semantic contortions to contend NI is not in the EU’s single market for goods when the imposition of the hundreds of laws that control its single market, as imposed by Article 5 and Annex 2 of the Protocol, are there in plain sight and even the ban on duty free confirms we are regarded as EU territory.
So, it is not the spin of the Command Paper that matters but what actual changes are perfected. There is no point in HMG boasting that Parliament is sovereign when it refuses to take back the sovereignty over NI surrendered to the EU. Indeed, it is clear the negotiations with the DUP were within the confines of the Protocol.
Here are the DUP’s solemn promises, repeated on multiple platforms along side me at anti-Protocol rallies, as to what was required to restore Stormont:-
- NI’s place fully restored in the UK
- Irish Sea border gone.
- EU law gone.
- Art 6 of Act(s) of Union restored.
Having now seen the meagre legal text of Sir Jeffrey’s deal, it is clear none of what was promised has been achieved.
- NI still operates subject to hundreds of EU laws with the same EU laws as ROI governing our goods economy – laws which Stormont ministers can’t change but must administer as Protocol implementers. Not one syllable of EU law has been removed.
- The tool to allegedly curb expansion of these EU laws is not new, but is the wholly inadequate ‘Stormont Brake’ which does not allow Stormont to stop anything, but leaves it up to the UK government and eventual arbitration under an EU panel.
- NI remains not just caught in the web of the EU’s single market and all its stultifying foreign rules, but, under the EU’s Customs Code which requires GB to be treated as a third/foreign country in terms of trade. – This is a huge constitutional detachment of NI. It is not remedied!
- The Irish Sea border stays with all raw materials for NI manufacturing and processing (a very significant part of our economy) having to pass through the rigours of the red lane where tariffs, checks and paperwork are undiminished. The border posts, which are being built at a cost of millions, remain as undeniable evidence that the border stays.
- Even the green lane retains paperwork and the insult of having to be in a trusted trader scheme to trade in your own country.
- It follows inexorably from the above that NI’s place within the UK has not been restored, rather we continue in condominium status ruled in part by UK laws and in part by foreign EU laws and with a border partitioning the UK and impeding unfettered trade, such as guaranteed by Article 6, which remains in suspension.
Thus our Union is still ruptured – the only difference now being that the DUP is stepping up as Protocol implementers.