A proposal by the EU supposedly aimed at solving ongoing issues to do with Brexit has been slammed by British officials as not actually fixing anything.
UK officials have derided an offer by the EU supposedly aimed at breaking the deadlock over Northern Ireland as failing to solve any of the actual problems that have resulted in the impasse in the first place.
Relations between the two powers have soured in recent months over issues to do with the Northern Ireland Protocol, an agreement leaving the contested six-county region within the EU’s single market, something that effectively forces businesses in the region to undergo customs checks if and when they need to trade with neighbouring Britain.
With pro-British Unionists in the region now expressing fear that such an arrangement effectively cuts Northern Ireland off from the rest of the UK, British officials are now looking at tearing up parts of the protocol without EU permission, a development that has greatly upset politicians in Brussels, as well as Washington D.C.
In an attempt to save the agreement, the EU has now proposed a new arrangement that would apparently see the process of checking goods travelling between Britain and Northern Ireland streamlined significantly, with the bloc’s Brexit tsar, Maros Sefcovic, saying that it would result in only a “couple” of lorries being checked every day.
However, according to a report by The Times, UK officials are unhappy with the proposal, arguing that it does not solve the key issues that have resulted in the dispute.
“They have done this before,” a number of officials reportedly told the publication. “The commission is good at solving problems that are not the problems that we believe need solving.”
“It is good that they are sounding positive, but we are not sure that this represents a tangible step forward,” they reportedly went on to say.
While seemingly put on the back-burner as a result of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the issue of Northern Ireland has been high on the list of priorities for Liz Truss’ new government, with the newly minted Prime Minister having been at the forefront of efforts to unilaterally rework parts of the agreement during her time as Foreign Secretary under Boris Johnson.
With the new administration looking like they may imminently tear up the agreement, the United States under ‘Irish’ Democratic President Joe Biden has suddenly stepped in, issuing veiled threats against the UK that any trade deals between the two powers would be jeopardised if the deal is changed without approval from Brussels.
“There’s no formal linkage on trade talks between the US and the UK and the Northern Ireland protocol, as we have said, but efforts to undo the Northern Ireland protocol would not create a conducive environment, and that’s basically where we are in the dialogue,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre previously said, warning the UK against taking unilateral action on the issue.
The Biden administration appears to be particularly concerned about the effect changing the agreement could have on the stability of the deeply sectarian region, with peace in the area largely being seen as contingent on the fact that there is no visible border between the Northern part of Ireland — which is under the control of the UK government — and the island’s southern counties, which is under control of the Irish state.
However, Liz Truss has argued that ripping up the agreement is the best way to ensure peace in the region, with the current arrangement causing great aggravation for significant parts of the area’s pro-British Unionist population.
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