Violence is not “off the table” in response to the sea border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, a member of the Loyalist Communities Council (LCC) told the Northern Ireland affairs select committee yesterday.
The Irish Sea border is only going to get thicker if, as looks likely, Boris Johnson opts to side with the cabinet’s free traders over the looming trade deal with Australia, because further divergence with the European Union on standards, particularly in agri-food, means a tighter customs and regulatory border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. That can be for good (the ban on foie gras) or for ill (greater openness to the antibiotic-resistance factories that are most large-scale American farms). But the border will get thicker, either way.
The cabinet’s debate over the Australia deal is, in large part, an argument about the deals that will follow a similar pattern, with Latin American countries and the United States. But it is also a debate that has consequences for the Irish border.
The DUP’s big talking point on the protocol, and one that will get louder as next year’s Stormont election approaches, is that if the combined forces of the DUP, the UUP and the TUV can win five extra seats, they can vote to discard the protocol. Now, this isn’t quite true: they can vote to trigger a two-year process to discuss alternatives to parts of the protocol. But the one thing that stays is the commitment to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. And, if the United Kingdom wants to stay outside the phytosanitary and agri-food orbit of the European Union, it can only end in one thing: a hard border in the Irish Sea.
Content from our partners
Related
