It is now clear that the EU/UK Withdrawal Agreement negotiated mainly by Theresa May was a capitulation to the Transnational Big Business interests in the Confederation of British Industry and other “Remainer” elements who knew that parts of it – in particular the Irish Protocol – would keep the UK entangled indefinitely in the EU and its Court of Justice.
It provides that EU rules regarding State aids and customs that were thought necessary in Northern Ireland to ensure that there was no physical border between North and South could extend to the whole of the UK. This would keep Britain as a whole under the jurisdiction of EU law post-Brexit – the Irish tail continuing to wag the British dog – which is what the “Remainers”, and of course the EU, have always wanted.
An alternative and perfectly reasonable approach for after the UK has left the EU would be for the UK Parliament to pass a new law requiring all exports continuing to the EU to meet all EU requirements on pain of criminal sanctions. As only about 6% of UK business firms are involved in exports to the EU, the other 94% could be exempted from EU laws without that having any adverse effect on the EU.
After all, the previous need for EU/UK border checks was removed when the EU’s Single European Act came into force, which was only possible because the House of Commons had passed the European Communities (Amendment) Act 1986 to approve that treaty.
If the existing UK law provides a sufficient guarantee to the Irish and EU authorities that there is no need to check imports from the UK at the North-South Border, as it does, then there seems no good reason why a new UK law could not also provide such a guarantee.
This proposal was advanced by a high-powered group including former senior British Commission official Jonathan Faull in an August 2019 paper entitled “An Offer the UK and the EU cannot refuse“.
Unfortunately both did refuse it. Tuilleadh
Filed under: Brexit, Irish Backstop, legal, Solutions | Tagged: Withdrawal agreement | 1 Comment »
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