Northern Ireland: UK announces indefinite delay to new border checks
The UK has announced indefinite delays to the implementation of new post-Brexit checks in Northern Ireland.
Defacto Brexit minister Lord David Frost today announced the EU had agreed to an effective “standstill” to the Brexit treaty’s Northern Ireland Protocol, which will mean a delay to checks on things like meat, fish and dairy products going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
It will also indefinitely delay the EU’s ban on chilled meats, such as sausages, being sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
The end of the grace periods would have meant more paperwork for businesses that send or receive goods coming across the Irish Sea, which could have led to supermarket shortages in Northern Ireland.
The extensions will allow the UK and EU to try and negotiate a longer-term settlement, after nine months of issues with the post-Brexit Northern Ireland Protocol.
Frost in June called for a standstill to the protocol, which would stop any new checks coming into place until a new settlement had been brokered between London and Brussels.
In a written statement, Frost said: “To provide space for potential further discussions, and to give certainty and stability to businesses while any such discussions proceed, the government will continue to operate the protocol on the current basis.
“We will ensure that reasonable notice is provided in the event that these arrangements were to change, to enable businesses and citizens to prepare.”
The protocol sees Northern Ireland follow the EU’s customs union and single market rules, unlike the rest of the UK, to ensure there is not a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.
The protocol has caused tensions to flare in unionist communities that feel they are being separated from the rest of the UK, with weeks of violent riots seen in Belfast earlier this year.
Ireland’s deputy prime minister Leo Varadkar said today that another extension of the grace period was very likely to happen.
Speaking to the BBC, he said: “I think there is a high probability that it will happen and we are certainly open to it.
“We do think that we need to create some space for further talks and further negotiations about how we can make the protocol work.
“I was in Northern Ireland last week and had a good chance to talk to the business community there.”
The UK unilaterally delayed border checks on agricultural goods travelling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in March, provoking fury and legal action from Brussels.
EU officials claimed the decision to act without Brussels’ approval was a violation of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Tensions have since cooled, after the UK and EU managed to negotiate an extension to a ban on chilled meat from Great Britain being sent to Northern Ireland to next month.
The UK wants to redraw the Northern Ireland Protocol to ensure that there are less checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
Lord David Frost, the UK’s defacto Brexit minister, said in July that “we cannot go on as we are”.
Brussels says its stringent implementation of checks is to ensure unauthorised goods do not enter its single market and that they are following the protocol to the letter of the law.
Frost’s plan to rewrite the post-Brexit arrangement would see an “honesty box” approach for exporters in Great Britain, which would see them declare if their goods are intended only for sale in Northern Ireland and therefore can skip customs checks.
The European Union took note of the UK’s plans, but said it was not pursuing further legal steps against London.
“At present, the Commission is not moving to the next stage of the infringement procedure launched in March 2021, and is not opening any new infringements for now,” the bloc’s executive said in a statement.