Brexit team seeks to evade Irish Sea checks on goods

[muriel_volestrangler]

Boris Johnson’s Brexit team has been ordered to draw up plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit withdrawal agreement so the prime minister can play hardball with Brussels over trade.

Officials in Taskforce Europe, run by Johnson’s EU negotiator David Frost, are working in secret on proposals to ensure that there do not need to be checks on goods passing from Britain to Northern Ireland.

They believe the new attorney-general, Suella Braverman, might have to give new legal advice to justify the move. Insiders say she was appointed because her predecessor Geoffrey Cox was not willing to countenance action that will be seen in Brussels as a breach of the exit agreement.

“There is deadly serious internal work going on about not obeying the Northern Ireland protocol,” a senior source said. “Taskforce Europe are looking into that. That’s why they had Suella put in there.”

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/brexit-team-seeks-to-evade-irish-sea-checks-on-goods-mv3pqjkcm

(I'm working off what was posted here as the article text: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/f866pb/brexit_team_seeks_to_evade_irish_sea_checks_on/ )

The Guardian says:

Brexit: UK reneging on Northern Ireland pledges risks trade deals with US and EU

Concern has been raised after Boris Johnson’s Brexit negotiating team has reportedly been ordered to come up with plans to “get around” the Northern Ireland protocol in the withdrawal agreement which includes checks on goods and food going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Former Irish ambassador to the EU Bobby McDonagh said reneging on it would have serious consequences including posing a risk to a future deal with Washington where support for Ireland is considerable.
...

Link to tweet

And Catherine Barnard, professor of EU law at Cambridge University said there would be immediate consequences if the UK did not show good faith both legally and reputationally.
...
“If, as some comments suggest, it were to renege on its legal obligations to carry our checks on goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland, it is hard to see what value the EU, or indeed any country, would see in a future trade deal with the UK. If the UK were to walk away from the binding provisions designed to preserve the balances of the Good Friday agreement, which it agreed to after lengthy negotiations, there would seem in particular to be no prospect of any UK/US trade deal being ratified by Congress,” McDonagh said.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/feb/23/brexit-uk-reneging-on-northern-ireland-pledges-risks-trade-deals-with-us-and-eu

[T_i_B]

1. Begs the question...

...who in their right mind would even think of negotiating a trade agreement with a country that willfully reneges on treaties they have only just agreed? If the UK government cannot be trusted by other countries then that is a major problem.