Is Northern Ireland protocol bill just ‘relatively trivial set of adjustments’?
Boris Johnson has played down the significance of the government’s Northern Ireland protocol bill, claiming it represents a “relatively trivial set of adjustments”. However the detail of the legislation includes four key changes to the way the protocol currently works:
The effect of the Northern Ireland protocol is to create a customs border in the Irish Sea, with goods exported from Great Britain to Northern Ireland facing checks, even if they are not destined for the Republic of Ireland or elsewhere in the EU.
Marks & Spencer has complained that the bureaucracy has added 24 hours to the time required to move food products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, shortening their shelf life – even with some checks mitigated by extended grace periods.
The bill would change that, by creating a “green channel” for goods leaving Great Britain that will remain in Northern Ireland. The foreign secretary, Liz Truss, has previously suggested this will be enforced using a “trusted trader” scheme, and the use of real-time data about flows of goods.
Checks would continue for exports heading beyond Northern Ireland into the republic, however, which would have to pass through a “red channel”.
Businesses putting their products up for sale within Northern Ireland will be given the choice of doing so under either UK or EU rules, even as those rules begin to diverge over time.
The government says this is to ensure Northern Ireland’s consumers can continue to buy goods under UK rules if they choose to do so.
When she announced her intention to publish the bill last month, Truss called this a “dual regulatory system that encompasses either EU or UK regulation as those businesses choose; [and] that reflects its unique status of having a close
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