Northern Ireland Protocol: UK ambassador grilled by Irish host

We use your sign-up to provide content in ways you’ve consented to and to improve our understanding of you. This may include adverts from us and 3rd parties based on our understanding. You can unsubscribe at any time. More info

British Ambassador Paul Johnson defended the UK Government’s recently published plans to override some post-Brexit rules governing Northern Irish trade amid outcry on RTE’s Morning Ireland. Dublin and Brussels have come out strongly against Boris Johnson’s proposals for fixing the Northern Ireland issue with the EU launching two new legal proceedings against Britain on Wednesday. 

RTE host Mary Wilson told the UK diplomat: “You know and it has been said time and again now by very very senior political figures, that the way forward is not to tear up a treaty.

“The way forward is…because baked into the protocol are the ways and means to do the negotiations that you were talking about last October, a set of moves for the way forward were put on the table by the European Union and they would say the UK has not come to do you haven’t come to the table.

“They’re still at the table.”

Mr Johnson told RTE’s Morning Ireland: “So we spent actually a lot of time examining the commission’s proposals from last October talking to them about it hundreds of hours of discussion, and we acknowledged that they were an important effort by the Commission to address some of the issues that had arisen.

“But when we analyse them in more detail, we saw that they were really an effort to mitigate the situation that we would be in if we had full implementation of the protocol, which no one is really talking about anymore. 

JUST IN: Boris blasted for leaving part of UK ‘behind in the EU’

“So although they would involve a reduction in the checks, and the bureaucratisation, that theoretical high point which we’ve never been out, they would actually leave us in many respects worse off than we are today with the unilateral grace periods and they wouldn’t address some of the other issues.”

Ms Wilson replied: “But Mr Ambassador, you’re being told you’re tearing up an international treaty or breach of international law.

“Just look at two of the newspapers this morning, in their editorials The Financial Times, saying Boris Johnson’s plan is dubious and damaging and just let me read one sentence from it here, it says the ‘his decision to breach international law should still horrify,’

“The Irish Times talking about a dialogue of the Deaf.”

Brexit: Maroš Šefčovič slams ‘illegal’ bill

Mr Johnson responded: “So the government is clear that the legislation we bring forward is lawful in terms of our international law obligations, in that it relates to the overriding priority for us of preserving and protecting the Good Friday Agreement in all its elements.”

Several large-scale smuggling incidents show that EU concerns over the operation of the Northern Ireland Protocol are not theoretical, Brussels has said.

Seizure of counterfeit high-value electrical products last year, fitted with the European Union-type plugs, show the need for robust processes at Northern Ireland ports, an EU official said.

The official said there was evidence criminals were trying to use the Irish Sea crossing to get prohibited products into the EU single market.

DON’T MISS:
Hated Brexit deal ‘could shatter UK’ [OPINION]
Farage blasts those blaming conflict in Ukraine for inflation [NEWS]
Britons blast Tories and Labour who are ‘as bad as each other’ [OPINION]

Drugs and weapons have also been seized, the official said.

“There is smuggling going on, for sure,” they added.

The EU official said the ongoing failure by the UK to provide real-time data on trade movements in a useable format meant the EU was unclear “how big the problem is” in relation to smuggling.

However, the official said seizures made by UK Border Force, with the involvement of EU personnel on the ground, have indicated it was a significant issue.

Source: Read Full Article