Brexit: picking a fight?

By Richard North - March 5, 2021

In any dispute, there tends to be at least two sides to the story. That the narratives often differ is generally part of the reason why there is a dispute in the first place. With the current Irish protocol situation, this is very much the case, with the two sides, predictably, telling different stories.

But, whatever the bones of the dispute, there is no question that UK is not yet ready to implement the border checks set out in the Protocol, to the timescale agreed. Thus, Wednesday saw the extension of the “period of grace” for foods sent to supermarkets in Northern Ireland to 1 October. Yesterday saw this extension broadened out to cover “the movement of goods in parcels“.

The scale of the problem affecting parcel deliveries from GB to Northern Ireland is immense, set out by Seamus Leheny, Policy Manager for Logistics UK in Northern Ireland.

Some parcel operators move up to six articulated lorries daily into NI, with approximately 5,000 parcels in each. Another operator ships more than 120 articulated lorries weekly, averaging 3,000 parcels per load. Under the rules that would have taken effect on 1 April, that operator alone would have had to make over 360,000 customs declarations per week.

Due to the large volumes of parcels handled, carriers must either process any customs declarations in-house or appoint a broker. Either option is costly and time consuming, and there is no help from government. The government’s temporary subsidy system, the Trader Support Service, is not geared to supporting the parcel sector.

Once the period of grace ends – which will now be on 1 October, unless extended further – all parcel declarations must be done via the government’s Customs Declaration Service (CDS), which relies on untested and unproven software, with a limited choice of software providers available to integrate the official system with carriers’ own IT systems.

When operational, the use of CDS is expected to be problematic. For instance, it limits a single user to transmitting a maximum of 150 messages per minute. Yet a cargo aircraft arriving at Belfast Airport typically has 8,000 consignments. To transmit the required declarations for that arrival alone would take 53 minutes.

On the horizon is the HMRC’s “Super Reduced Data Set” (SRDS), to cover low value consignments. Developed as an EU system, originally intended to be operational from 1 January 2021, it will not now be available until the fourth quarter of this year. Until then, the full dataset would be required, which would be hugely time consuming, costly and require carriers to upgrade internal IT systems.

Now, the point of all this is that both the UK government and the EU were fully aware of the problems and, according to the Irish times, an extension could have been comfortably agreed as part of the ongoing discussions on implement of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

In other words, or so it is being said, because the EU would have agreed an extension of the grace period, the move to do so unilaterally by the UK without reference to either Brussels or Dublin is being interpreted as an aggressive, deliberately hostile move.

And because the unilateral action was unnecessary, the EU believes the whole point of the British action is to have a row. Predictably, the move is likely to be met with legal action.

One of the neatest summaries, therefore, comes from the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung which reports under the headline, “When right becomes wrong”. Effectively, it says, the British are right is seeking to extend the period of grace, but with their actions they are putting themselves in the wrong.

Then, in an extraordinarily trenchant comment for a foreign newspaper, it states that Johnson had promised that there would be no customs border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the kingdom, which it calls an “outright lie”, easily uttered by those “who fight for Brexit”.

At the same time, the paper says, this lie puts Johnson under a lot of pressure: controls and bureaucracy are inevitable, and yet Johnson must make it appear that he can fight and avert it. Otherwise he would disappoint his loyal Brexit supporters.

It is precisely to cultivate this image, the paper adds, that the government decided to extend unauthorised customs relief and thus break the agreement on the Northern Ireland Protocol. Johnson and his more rowdy (krawalliger) confidante Lord David Frost, can stage themselves as upright fighters against insubordinate Brussels regulations.

Offering more commentary on the London stance, the Irish Times has Downing Street defending its action, saying that it is not in breach of international law.

Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said the British government remained committed to the protocol and that it informed “at official level” the European Commission and the Irish Government, adding:

We need to make progress to address the disproportionate impact that some of the aspects of the protocol are having on the citizens of Northern Ireland, contrary to its intended purpose. That’s why, following official-level notification to the commission earlier this week, we’ve set out the temporary technical steps, which largely continue measures already in place to provide more time for businesses such as supermarkets and parcel operators to adapt and to implement the new requirements in the protocol. These are sensible and necessary practical steps to address some of the issues that are being faced but we continue to want to work through the joint committee process.

Not everyone is convinced by these assertions and, in addition to the possibility of legal action, with The Times reporting that the EU could impose tariffs on UK goods, the European Parliament has postponed setting a date for ratifying the TCA.

It had been expected that a vote would be held on 25 March but after a meeting on Thursday it has been left off the parliamentary agenda for now. The vote, we are told, could potentially be delayed until late April to allow MEPs to follow the development of the Northern Ireland border issue.

But, while Johnson and Frost play their games, it is Ireland which is in the front line. Irish officials, alongside their EU counterparts, say that the British move has severely damaged trust. “They are bad faith actors and they will continue to be”, was the bleak assessment of one Irish source, conveyed by the Irish Times. “The situation in the North is pretty febrile, and it’s pretty clear that London doesn’t care”, he adds.

It is the situation in the North that most concerns Dublin right now. In a sense, says the IT, Ireland is caught between the EU’s requirements that the protocol be implemented properly and the EU single market protected on one hand, and the need on the other hand to take account of the genuine unrest in unionism over the barriers between the North and Britain.

Then there is Wednesday night’s statement from loyalists close to paramilitary organisations. that they were withdrawing their support for the Belfast Agreement as a result of the post-Brexit arrangements. This was received in Dublin as an example of how events in the North can escalate if they are not minded carefully by all sides.

Ireland is committed to its place in the EU, but no Irish government ever wants to be put in a position where its commitment to the EU and its promotion of peace in the North are in conflict. Walking that tightrope has got rather more difficult, the IT concludes.