The Irish protocol.

Interesting comment by Brandon Lewis on the negotiations----

"It’s often forgot there has been some form of phytosanitary checks, the SPS checks people talk about, between Great Britain and Northern Ireland because of the single epidemiological unit of the island for a very, very long time.”

“So some form of structure around that isn’t going to change. What we need to do is resolve these issues that are currently there with the protocol"

This following Joe's rebuke, failure to trigger article 16 and Bojo saying 'Fix it or Ditch it' makes me think there is a softening of the stance and 'Fix it' could mean some form of 'Implement it'

Yeah and the NIP was a choice the UK made.

That depends on the changes they seek, obviously. It's not appropriate to seek changes which would tend to lead to a hard land border. If you're pursuing a dangerous and divisive policy, you don't get a pass on criticism or opposition just because you are pursing it democratically.

Would the changes they seek tend to lead to a hard border? On one level, that's impossible to say, since they refuse to specify the changes they seek. On another level, they persistently raise fears that they would, since (a) they themselves largely backed hard brexit, which is the problem; (b) they themselves oppposed other proposed solutions which would have avoided a land border; (c) they align themselves with Johnson and Frost, whose bad faith on this question is palpable; and (c) they have never, at any point, taking the obvious course for someone who dislikes the protocol but also wants to avoid a hard border, which is to point out that hard brexit is the problem here, and to press for soft brexit.

All in all, it's difficult to avoid the view that unionists are in the camp of those for whom hard brexit is a greater priority than peace in Ireland. Is it appropriate for unionists to democratically seek changes to the protocol for that purpose? No, absolutely not.

Seriously? Back to this again?

"No hard border" was one of the first red lines announced by the UK, at a time when it had next to no idea about what else it wanted out of Brexit. It turned out to be a red line for the EU as well, which you would think should make agreement easy.

What it meant was fleshed out by agreement between the UK and the EU in the joint report of December 2017 and, lookit, if unionists think that at this stage the Brexit process can be unpicked all the way back to December 2017 then why not go the whole hog, unpick it all the way back to June 2016, and rerun the referendum?

So, take the Joint Report as a given. It says that:

• The UK is committed to "the avoidance of a hard border, including any physical infrastructure or related checks and controls". So, no border infrastructure; no checks or controls on trade, commerce or travel over the border. (Which is to say, no checks or controls that arise out of the fact that the trade/commerce/travel is cross-border; obviously the check and controls that would be applied to trade, etc not crossing the border can also be applied to trade etc that crosses the border.)

You can stop there if you like; that is basically what "no hard border" means; no physical infrastructure at or related to the border; no checks or controls on the movement of goods, services, people arising out of the fact that they are crossing the border. And that's the answer to the question you asked.

But it's worth going a bit further, to see what the UK and the EU agreed about how a hard border was to be avoided, and about what this meant for the wider UK/EU relationship.

• "Both Parties recognise the need to respect the provisions of the 1998 Agreement regarding the constitutional status of Northern Ireland and the principle of consent." The UK courts have of course ruled that the NI Protocol is consistent with the GFA and does not affect the constitutional status of NI which the GFA protects, so particular box is ticked.
• "The United Kingdom respects . . . Ireland's place in the Internal Market and the Customs Union". Thus, border infrastructure and related checks and control will not be avoided by measures which jeopardise or detract from Ireland's place in the Single Market/Customs Union. The ideas that a few lunatic Tories still float of Ireland leaving the SM and joining the UK's internal market, or of SM controls being applied to trade between Ireland and the mainland, were ruled out.
• These commitments [i.e. no infrastructure, checks, controls] "are made and must be upheld in all circumstances, irrespective of the nature of any future agreement between the European Union and United Kingdom. Any future arrangements must be compatible with these overarching requirements." (Emphasis added by me.) So, the no infrastructure, checks, controls commitment set firm parameters within which the Withdrawal Agreement and the TCA had to be negotiated and concluded. Any changes to, or replacement for, the NIP would likewise have to be compatible with those commitments.

Having explained (a) the content and (b) the signficance of the no-hard-border commitment, the Joint Report went on to flish out how it would be delivered:

But it's worth going a bit further, to see what the UK and the EU agreed about how a hard border was to be avoided, and about what this meant for the wider UK/EU relationship.

"The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting and supporting continued North-South and East-West cooperation across the full range of political, economic, security, societal and agricultural contexts and frameworks of cooperation . . . The United Kingdom remains committed to protecting North-South cooperation and to its guarantee of avoiding a hard border . . .The United Kingdom's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship. Should this not be possible, the United Kingdom will propose specific solutions to address the unique circumstances of the island of Ireland. In the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the Internal Market and the Customs Union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 Agreement."

This is worth unpacking a bit. It provides a three-tiered approach to delivering on the no-hard-border commitment:

• First, the UK intends to avoid a hard border "through the overall EU-UK relationship" - i.e. it aims for a Brexit soft enough that there'll be no hard border between the UK and the EU, so the question of a hard border between NI and IRL will never come up. Obviously, the UK didn't follow through on this; it went for a hard Brexit.
• Secondly, failing that, the UK will propose island-of-Ireland specific solutions to avoid a hard border. The specific solution that the UK proposed became, of course, the NIP.
• Thirdly, in the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will simply remain aligned with SM/CU rules to the extent necessary to avoid border infrastructure, checks or controls. That one never got tested, because there was an agreed solution. But, had the EU not agreed to the NI Protocol, this paragraph would have kicked in. And it needs to be read with the immediately following paragraph, which says more about what happens if there is no agreed solution:
• "In the absence of agreed solutions . . .the United Kingdom will ensure that no new regulatory barriers develop between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom, unless, consistent with the 1998 Agreement, the Northern Ireland Executive and Assembly agree that distinct arrangements are appropriate for Northern Ireland."
• So, if the UK hadn't reached agreement on the NIP or something similar, then (a) they would have needed to keep NI sufficiently closely aligned to the SM/CU to avoid any need for infrastructure, checks, control, and (b) they would have needed to extend much of that alignment to GB as well, unless the NI institutions agreed to separate treatment for NI. In other words, no hard Brexit for NI, and the NI institutions to have a veto over hard Brexit for GB.
• But note that the "no new NI/GB barriers" commitment only applies "in the absence of agreed solutions". And there was no way the hard Brexiters in the Tory Party were going to allow their hard Brexit to be vetoed by the NI institutions. Hence, they were highly motivated to find an agreed solution with the EU. Hence, the NIP. And this still provides the parameters within which any changes to the NIP would have to be framed.

Fantastic post Peregrinus, can't wait for Downcow to pick out just one single sentence from it to complain about and ignore the rest of it.

Answer to the second one: We, as equal members of the EU will not be inconvenienced and burdened by the cost of a hard border on this island.

You wanted to Brexit, you bear the pain and inconvenience.

First one: Any hinderance on the island of Ireland to free movement of goods and people is not happening again.

You wanted to Brexit, you bear the pain and inconvenience of a sea border, we intend to get on with being good Europeans.

I answered your first question, as you requested, honestly and succinctly, with a single paragraph which for the benefit of slow readers I set out here again:

"You can stop there if you like; that is basically what "no hard border" means; no physical infrastructure at or related to the border; no checks or controls on the movement of goods, services, people arising out of the fact that they are crossing the border. And that's the answer to the question you asked."

As to your second question ("why is a hard border on the island not appropriate?") an honest and succinct answer would be " it's not appropriate for the all the reasons that have led the UK and the EU to agree consistently since the start of this process that it's not appropriate". Those reasons are well documented and have been exhaustively discussed. Because those reasons are many and various a succinct statement of them would be difficult, but it would probably run along the lines of "a hard border on the island of Ireland is not appropriate because it cuts away the foundation on which the GFA was constructed, and so imperils the GFA and threatens the peace settlement in Ireland". That's more or less what it says in the Joint Report which, to spare you the distress of being asked to read text that you may not consider sufficiently succinct, I won't quote.

I would have thought that this was so well-understood and accepted by now that it shouldn't need repeating. If it wasn't transparently obviously true you'd think that somebody in the British government would have pointed that out, rather than signing the Joint Report. And anybody who asks about it could be met with the counter-question "tell me honestly and fairly succinctly why you think a hard border on the island is appropriate?"