15 April, Briefings for Britain, Catherine McBride
Everyone can surely now see that putting a border down the Irish sea and breaking up the UK’s internal market to “preserve the peace” in Northern Ireland (as the EU would have us believe), was a massive mistake. Northern Ireland’s Unionists are rightly very aggrieved at being taken out of the UK without any say on the matter – contrary to the principle of democratic consent enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement – especially as Boris Johnson assured them several times in the run up to the 2019 general election that under his “oven-ready deal” there would be no border down the Irish sea.
The EU and UK Remainers were adamant that only an open border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, with no customs checks, could maintain peace on the island of Ireland and protect the EU’s Single Market. (A specious claim encouraged by Theresa May’s government in order to create the backstop which would trap the entire UK under EU control, thereby negating Brexit). Boris Johnson renegotiated the backstop with his hands tied by a rogue Remainer Parliament. Consequently, the current Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) was drafted in a great hurry. It effectively moved a border between two separate countries to one between two parts of the same country, splitting the United Kingdom. This means that goods exported to or imported from Great Britain must now go through customs inspections and food safety check before they leave or enter Northern Ireland.
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