The BBC and other media swamp us with the EU view on the Protocol. Most of the interviewers clearly have not read the document. If they had they would be asking the EU
1 Why have the completely alienated the Unionist community leading to the breakdown of the Assembly Executive? This breaks the Protocol’s support for the Good Friday Agreement.
2. Why do they presume to place controls and obstacles in the way of GB to NI trade when the Protocol expressly supports the integrity of the UK’s internal market?
3. Why did they sign up to the Protocol under the Withdrawal Agreement which under EU law was not allowed to tackle the post Brexit relationship? Why did they help create Article 13.8 which recognised the potential need to change or abolish the Protocol?
4. Article 16 expressly allows U.K. unilateral action where there has been damage to the community and or economy of NI, as the Unionists demonstrate there has.
5. Clause 38 of the Withdrawal Act which gives legal force to the Agreement in the U.K. expressly allows the U.K. Parliament to override the Agreement where necessary. If it had not quite a few Conservative MPs who want a sovereign U.K. would not have voted for it.
6. Article 186 of the Withdrawal Agreement requires good faith by both parties. The EU has not shown this in relation to the guarantees in the document to respect U.K. sovereignty and internal market
It is absurd that U.K. supermarkets cannot ship items to NI as easily as to any place in GB. It is completely wrong that the EU can stop the U.K. cutting VAT in NI. It is outrageous that the EU pushes through huge amounts of new law that has to be applied in NI when they have no say in its making. The government must act. There are several ways of doing so legally. It is the EU which is failing to uphold the Protocol.
Protocol. “The Good Friday Agreement…should be protected in all its parts”
“shall use best endeavours to facilitate the trade between NI and other parts of the U.K.”
“should impact as little as possible on the everyday life of communities”
“The importance of maintaining the integral place of NI in the UKs internal market”
etc
Follow this news feed: John Redwood MP