The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #172486   Message #4196377
Posted By: DMcG
30-Jan-24 - 04:02 AM
Thread Name: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
Subject: RE: BS: Brexit & other UK political topics - 3
It is great news that the DUP has agreed to power-sharing so that Stormont can restart. The people of Northern Ireland deserve to ability to elect their own government, and that is once again restarting, by the sound of it.

However, the Guardian's report on this says "Sinn Féin will get to nominate its inaugural first minister after Westminster legislates to end checks on goods moving within UK and imposition of EU law". And I am afraid that sounds very much like we are going back to square one. It is inherent in having different rules and regulations in the EU and the UK that there is a border somewhere. To be clear, I don;t mean 'border posts', but I do mean a line where the rules differ on each side of it.

Simply saying 'it will not be in the Irish Sea', which this sounds like, just reopens the question "Where is it then?" that has been the problem since day 1 of the negotiations.

I can see only one solution that preserves the GFA and the Windsor Agreement and satisfies the DUP requirement that the rules are the same in NI and the rest of the UK, and that is that every item produced anywhere in the UK has the 'not for sale in the EU' label.

The idea NI does not have to abide by EU law is trickier to address, because that is in the existing agreement with the EU. So that takes us back to before Theresa May's days...