Northern Ireland Protocol Used as Proxy in Tory Efforts to Unseat BoJo, Legal Expert Says

The European Parliament has called upon the UK not to adopt Prime Minister Boris Johnson's legislation which "overrides" the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP). For their part, 52 out of 90 Northern Ireland Assembly members have condemned BoJo's plan.

"If you look at the figures, in fact, the economic situation of Northern Ireland is better than most of the regions of the UK," says Nikos Skoutaris, an expert in conflict resolution and European Union law at the University of East Anglia.

"Only London and Northern Ireland have done relatively well over the past year. London - because it's the capital of financial services and Northern Ireland because of the protocol. So the situation at the moment, financially-economically speaking, it's not problematic for Northern Ireland, because the protocol hasn't created an economic issue in Northern Ireland."

Northern Ireland Assembly members from the majority Sinn Féin, as well as the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and the Alliance Party have sent a letter to Prime Minister Johnson arguing that even though the protocol has certain flaws, it "offers clear economic advantages to our region, and the opportunity for unique access to two major markets."

For his part, Johnson insists that the new bill would introduce "relatively simple" changes to the NIP, which are "a relatively trivial set of adjustments in the grand scheme of things". In particular, the new legislation stipulates the establishment of a "green channel" for goods transported from the UK to Northern Ireland; it also introduces a change in the tax rules stripping the European Court of its role as the sole arbiter of disputes.

Previously, the BoJo cabinet repeatedly subjected the NIP to criticism for violating British interests. Under the Brexit agreement with the EU, there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland; however, at the same time, all goods and animal-based products coming from Britain must be checked upon arrival to ensure their compatibility with EU sanitary regulations.

BoJo Trying to Gain Back Tory Confidence

There is more to BoJo's latest legislative initiative than meets the eye, according to Skoutaris. He believes that the British premier is also seeking a way to gain back the confidence of Conservative MPs following the latest no-confidence vote. Last week, the premier managed to survive the party vote despite a large rebellion: a whopping 146, or 41%, of Conservative MPs voted to remove him, while 211 supported the incumbent.

"Сlearly, Boris Johnson is in a difficult position because more than 40% of MPs have voted against him," says the legal expert. "One of the things that he wants to do is to appeal to the most right wing of his party by actually taking a very, very hard position on the Northern Ireland dispute. So to make a long story short, it seems that it's part of his strategy to stay in power,” he continued.

New Tory Rebellion

According to the Financial Times, a new Tory rebellion is brewing over the NIP. Skoutaris notes that over the weekend, "a document that was leaked by one of the groups of the Tory Party with the rebels who were actually analysing why they shouldn't support the legislation coming from Prime Minister Johnson."

"Breaking international law to tear up the prime minister’s own treaty is damaging to everything the UK and Conservatives stand for," the document reads. According to the Tory rebels, the BoJo-proposed legislation is the "exact opposite of focusing on the cost of living and pursuing the people’s priorities, as we have been promised" and should be axed. They argue that the premier should have put “maximum pressure on the EU” to re-negotiate the NIP within the framework of international law, rather than altering post-Brexit provisions unilaterally.

While the BoJo government seems confident that it will get the numbers to support the legislation at least in the House of Commons, "it's clear that they will have a problem in the House of Lords," argues Skoutaris.

The legal expert warns that Johnson "is at the weakest point of his premiership at the moment."

"So perhaps what we are going to see is a situation where there is a war inside the Conservative Party and the Northern Ireland Protocol will be used as a proxy, as kind of a cause for this war," Skoutaris says. "I think that it's very, very possible that a number of people within the Tory Party will be refusing to support the draft legislation, which is more hardcore and more extreme than we expected."

To complicate matters further, it appears that neither the UK nor the EU are going to engage in negotiations over the protocol, according to the legal expert. He believes that in some way the UK government has forced itself in a corner, while the EU is unwilling to compromise. "If they compromise, they will show that they are very, very weak and they are giving in to a prime minister that is actually in a very weak position," he remarked.

Eventually, the current conflict between the EU and the UK might increase frictions, tensions, and the divide between the different communities in Northern Ireland, Skoutaris concluded.