Achilles was vulnerable only in the heel, but she still killed him. The border of Northern Ireland was Boris Johnson’s biggest “untruth” in Brexit.
He told the Irish prime minister that there would be no border. He told the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) that there would be no border in the Irish Sea. He told everyone that he would leave the European Customs Union.
The latest disaster is Johnson’s decision to revoke the Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU. He refuses to regulate the customs border in Belfast.
As this implies a breach of EU customs controls, Brussels is angry and threatens to take action “very soon”.
We have seen problems with the supply of some food in Northern Ireland before as a result of the end of the initial transition period for Brexit since the beginning of the year. Trade is not about chauvinistic rhetoric, it is about people’s lives.
With the end of the “grace period”, it is clear that Johnson must quickly decide what to do – whether to raise customs barriers around the six counties and thus violate the Good Friday agreement, or to raise this limit around the dock in Belfast.
The first option would be a logistical and emotional nightmare. This is likely to lead to a possible conflict between the north and the south and many divisions in the process.
Or he will have to barricade Belfast for the agreement with the EU and anger his DUP partners, which he twice refused to do because of the violation of the Northern Ireland Protocol. But he just has to decide that.
The contradiction of trade with Northern Ireland is obvious. Britain can leave the customs union, but Northern Ireland really can’t. The fair way is to ask voters in Northern Ireland what exactly they want.
They have never been asked if they want to leave the customs union, as has happened with the rest of the United Kingdom.
And that was Johnson’s idea again. One day, Britain will almost certainly turn its back on idiocy and rejoin the EU.
Until that happens, there must be a limit. So just ask Northern Ireland where it should be.
Translation: Labor / Pavel Pavlov
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