Boris Johnson created this Brexit mess in Northern Ireland – and he should own it
Two of Boris Johnson’s most reckless chickens are coming home to roost. To get hard Brexit into law and topple his predecessor, Theresa May, he told Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party that he would allow no border in the Irish Sea. He promptly allowed one, and signed a protocol to the Brexit deal to that effect. An enraged DUP is duly refusing to let the new Northern Irish executive take office until that border goes. Johnson is now threatening to unilaterally renege on the protocol, in turn enraging the EU by flagrantly breaching the withdrawal deal. Precisely this trap was built into hard Brexit from day one. Everyone knew it. It was classic Johnson. He lied his way out of each scrape, sacking or ennobling colleagues according to taste.
The absence of a new executive in Belfast leaves open the prospect of direct rule from London. If Johnson fails to dismantle the EU-ordained border controls at Belfast docks, the DUP will stall power-sharing. If he gives in and allows the world’s goods to flow freely into the Irish republic, the EU has threatened to retaliate in an all-out trade war. The question is what new “constructive ambiguity” – a euphemism for fudge – Johnson can conceivably fashion to get him out of this mess.
Amid all the shouting and screaming of Brexit, quiet voices were warning: don’t forget Northern Ireland. The Brexiters dismissed it as a historical trifle. Since the UK would have tariff-free trade with the EU, the Irish border would be “frictionless”. No problem.
Of all the deceits of hard Brexit, none was more blatant than the word frictionless. Johnson in effect ceded authority over the 40% of Britain’s trade that is with the EU under the pretence that he was “taking back control”. But it takes
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