Why the U.K. and the European Union are Fighting About Northern Ireland

The Brits are trying to pass a law to override aspects of the Brexit withdrawal agreement even though it would violate international law.

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The U.K. is coming up on a hard deadline in its departure from the European Union, and like any messy divorce, things are getting heated. 

Technically, “Brexit” was official on January 31, but the withdrawal deal stipulated an 11-month transition to allow the two sides to negotiate their future relationship. With the transition period ending on December 31—and no further opportunity to extend that deadline, the last chance to do so having passed in June—there are still several contentious points to work out, especially regarding Northern Ireland.

Right now, the British government is signaling its willingness to violate international law by attempting to pass a law, called the Internal Market Bill, that would override three parts of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal agreement with the EU: the requirement of customs checks on goods passing from Northern Ireland into Britain, restrictions on state subsidies to favored industries, and the application of EU judicial decisions (known as direct effect) in Northern Ireland. 

In remarks addressed to the House of Commons on Tuesday, Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis spoke about a new bill the government plans to unveil: “Yes, this does break international law in a very specific and limited way. We’re taking the powers to disapply the EU law concept of direct effect … in a certain very tightly defined circumstance.”

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  1. Avatar photo
    James Spiller

    Does Pelosi’s claim that she would oppose a US UK FTA on GFA grounds seem plausible to you? Nine percent of Americans oppose the idea. Maybe twice that number have heard of the GFA. On the assumption that there’s an immigration element akin to the Australian FTA, it would make life considerably easier for large numbers of wealthy and influential Americans (including some journalists).

    There are stupid problems with it in UK politics, particularly while Trump is in power, but Pelosi is virtue signaling here in a cheap way, not making a genuine commitment to opposing one of the most popular major laws that she is likely to pass.

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    Victor Clairmont

    Man, I feel bad for this. Brexit it has been voted twice and it’s still going through a long slog for details.

    Thank you for the deep dive Mr Surton! The nature of the shifting arguments are bewildering.

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    1. Counterpoint

      "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." H.L. Mencken

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        Victor Clairmont

        "...No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.…" Winston S. Churchill

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    Hrodland

    I blame this all on cricket. Anytime the British (i.e. English) encounter sane, concrete rules, they are at a loss.

    "Leg before wicket, chaps!"

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  4. Counterpoint

    This article brought to mind a fantastic George Orwell quote:

    "A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims, but accomplices."

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  5. Victoria Ferauge

    Yes. Fintan O'Toole, the Irish journalist, has much more to say about Brexit and you can read his latest on The Guardian website. What Boris and Co. promised the British public was access to the EU market AND economic and political independence. We have friends in Brighton and these staunch Brexiteers were very clear about their expectations. And they truly believed that it was all possible because the Germans would never allow the EU to do otherwise. I was skeptical at the time and today I recognize the delusion.

    I cannot speak for all EU citizens but I can relate what my French spouse and our closest friends here in France who tend, frankly, to be pretty conservative were saying: De Gaulle was right and Great Britain never belonged in the EU in the first place. It was simply a poor fit and nothing was ever going to change that. So, best that they go. Today? No one I know is really talking about Brexit anymore and I see just a few spots on the news now and again. Too many other things going on. A hard Brexit is inevitable, I think. And when it comes the reaction is likely to be a few headlines and shrugs all around.

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    1. Counterpoint

      That makes a lot of sense to me. In the end I think Brexit is a mild positive for the EU (it was a bad fit as you mentioned) and a significant negative for Britain (loss of market access, trouble with Ireland and Scotland, internal division). It seems to be an own goal of epic proportion. Of course, I live across the pond so The Economist is the closest I get to how it looks from the UK.

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        James Spiller

        Fwiw, I find myself torn over whether it was a good thing for the UK, but it seems unambiguously terrible for Europe.

        On things that the UK was an outlier on it got outvoted anyway. For the most part, British commissioners and MEPs implemented laws only on the things where they agreed with the non-communist/ fascist/ Cypriot etc. parade of horrors that govern so much of the democratic aspects of the EU. The loss of Britain means the loss of a considerable amount of governing capacity in an organization that routinely suffers from competence issues.

        While it is true that the UK loses access to a very large market, and that the loss is not symmetrical, the loss of the UK and related markets is not trivial for the EU; the fragmenting of the biggest financial marketplace outside the US, in particular, makes it more attractive to look west for a lot of things (although Biden might help them out there). The European Defense Force also looks a lot less serious.

        The UK exchanges better governance (British voters aren’t as good as Americans, but they’re a lot better than Italians, Greeks, and Such) for inferior economic outcomes, at least in the short run. The EU gets worse government (for the same reason that the UK gets better, or with the same dynamic that Argentina entering the US as a 51st state would make US governance worse and Argentine better), but also gets a worse economic outcome.

        What’s the upside?

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        1. Counterpoint

          There's no real upside you can point to for anyone here. But the EU is now down one member that didn't believe in the idea of ever closer integration. Some negatives can turn to positives - for example the loss of the UK may cause the EU to stop up their investment in the EDF and improve their own capabilities.

          Bottom line, when you have a member that isn't sure they want to be there, it may turn into a positive if they leave.

          Same could apply for the UK, whether it ends up as positive or negative depends a lot on how they proceed post Brexit and factors outside their control. Maybe they will do well, maybe they will break apart - but my view is that the counterintuitive take is the correct one - that their destiny is less under their own control post Brexit than it was as a part of the EU.

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  6. Erin

    Sincere apologies in advance for my ignorance on this, but why can't there be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland? I assume there's a hard border between Norway and Sweden, and between Switzerland and the surrounding countries. Who, specifically, would be mad about this and why? (Feel free to direct me to some other tidy explanation online if that's easier!)

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    1. Jade Allen

      I'm an American but I've worked in both the Republic and NI and honestly the two zones are sufficiently economically bound together at this point that a return to a hard border would be a real pain in the butt for people who live in one place and work in the other or companies that are in one place and ship products to the other.

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        James Spiller

        Would you agree with me that it’s an extremely negative consequence for Northern Ireland and, to a lesser extent, the Republic, that is also extremely unlikely to lead to mass violence?

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    2. James Sutton

      Good question Erin! It's mostly because the Good Friday agreement in 1998, which brought an end to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland, was partly based on the removal of border checkpoints and security measures, which had become sources of conflict

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      1. Erin

        Thanks!  I'm somewhat aware of this agreement and The Troubles.  I'm going to try to spell it out for myself more explicitly - you or others can tell me if I'm on the mark or what I'm getting wrong... Most people in N. Ireland would like to be a part of the UK, but many people in N. Ireland and most in the Republic of Ireland would like to see a "united Ireland".  The Good Friday agreement allowed N. Ireland to exist in a sort of vague middle ground where both sides felt like they got their way by (1) having N. Ireland officially in the UK, but (2) having no hard border with the Republic of Ireland.  But now Brexit is making it so, really, there has to be a hard border somewhere, either b/w N. Ireland and Republic of Ireland, or b/w N. Ireland and the rest of the UK.  So Brexit is making this vague-in-between-status of N. Ireland unsustainable.

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        1. Erin

          Tacking on - and if there's a hard border b/w N. Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, it will anger the people who want a united Ireland, and we're fearing a return to the pre-GFA violence.

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          1. James Sutton

            Exactly!

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    Kaitlin Johnson

    Thanks for the deep dive into Brexit! Every time I read something new about it I change my mind if I would have supported it or not. Especially with that last line in this piece I'm thinking I would not have.

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    1. Counterpoint

      For the "Remain" side, one of the things that has always been aggravating is that the leave campaigners were aggressive about assuring the people that they could have both things. Knowledgable people on both sides always knew that would never happen. I think that makes it hard for the UK to move past this rift.

      From the other end, I don't know how the EU manages to keep their level of patience with all this. Their negotiators should apply for sainthood - I would have walked away long, long ago in their place.

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        Kaitlin Johnson

        Exactly, this article really got across how the Leave side believed they could keep changing their desires and terms of agreement.

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