China to tighten grip on Hong Kong elections, 'Liberating' to be able to speak - Meghan, Tiger Woods: Car crashes and comebacks. Peter Flanagan, March 5, 2021, 12:00 AM EST SHARE THIS ARTICLE. Quiz of the week: What do you recall of the Golden Globes? The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites. Stocks Slump as Treasury Yields Top 1.5% on Powell: Markets Wrap, Texas Watchdog Says Grid Operator Made $16 Billion Error, Nintendo Plans Switch Model With Bigger Samsung OLED Display, Stocks Fluctuate With Treasury Yields Near 1.6%: Markets Wrap, Largest Vaccine Maker Warns of Delays as U.S. Prioritizes Pfizer. This would prove to be the engagement which unlocked a deal that ultimately saw an Irish Sea border approved by the UK Parliament. In her Lancaster House speech, the then Prime Minister Theresa May sought to end the debate and set a course for a hard Brexit. If a simple majority in the assembly backs the protocol, another vote will be held four years later. Celebrating the world's largest female afro. Read about our approach to external linking. We still don't know exactly what the two men discussed. Brexit had ‘no impact’ on cross-Border policing co-operation, UK minister says Robin Walker said due to trade deal with EU it was a case of ‘so far so good, and that’s to be welcomed’ Northern Ireland keeps a foot in both systems after Brexit. News Brexit: EU, UK make progress on Irish border issue. I warned about danger of Irish Sea border – and what Brexit would mean for identity 28/01/2021. Read about our approach to external linking. Brexit: Five steps that led to an Irish Sea border January 2017: The Lancaster House speech. Without the DUP obstacle he was free to get his deal through Parliament. From that moment it was inevitable that there would have to be a new border somewhere. But that would be by simple majority, meaning unionists would not have a veto. One of them was Northern Ireland and the border. Yet, it’s drawing bitter criticism from unionists who claim it undermines their British identity because it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the U.K. Why Brexit Is Still Fueling Irish Border Tension Bloomberg - Peter Flanagan. Keeping the land border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland free of any visible checkpoints is a key plank of the Brexit accord between the European Union and U.K. An agreement, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, aims to do just that. The protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s customs area and much of the single market. That means cargo coming from mainland Britain needs to be checked before or on entry to the region to ensure it meets the bloc’s rules and standards. When the Brexit transition ends on 1 January there will be a new trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. The prospect -- however faint -- of controls returning to the Irish border sparked outrage, forcing the Commission to reverse course almost immediately. Have a confidential tip for our reporters? The EU says a UK move to unilaterally extend grace periods for Irish Sea border checks will be a breach of international law. “There would have to be border controls but not a prevention of genuine Irish from coming in across the border” Lord Lawson, Vote Leave campaign, 10 April 2016 “I think that the land border we share with Ireland can be as free-flowing after a Brexit vote as it is today” A soft Brexit meant staying in the EU's single market or customs union or perhaps both. Without special status, checks would have had to take place on the frontier because the U.K. has exited the customs union and single market. How the first weeks of Brexit led to empty shelves in some Northern Ireland stores. VideoWhat happens when a virus mutates? The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which was propping up Mrs May's government, had got language inserted at the last minute which seemed to give them a veto on sea border arrangements. DUBLIN – Ireland wants the EU to provide an “early warning system” to prevent any repetition of the Article 16 border fiasco. The deal which Mr Johnson agreed unambiguously created an Irish Sea border. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal. Also on rt.com Brexit grace periods must be extended to ensure supplies reach Northern Irish supermarkets, says UK’s Gove. Nearly a century after partition, a majority in Northern Ireland want to remain part of the U.K. And outside Northern Ireland there was little discussion about what that relationship might mean for the Irish border or Northern Ireland's place in the UK. The government believes that supermarkets and traders aren’t ready for the new rules, and David Frost, the former chief Brexit negotiator who became minister responsible for relations with the EU, described the moves as “temporary technical steps.” The U.K. had previously asked for the deadline to be extended until 2023, but the bloc hasn’t signed off on that proposal. But whatever Mr Varadkar said it was enough to persuade Mr Johnson to accept a deal with the EU just a week later. Even countries which participate in the single market have customs borders with the EU, albeit relatively free-flowing ones. Irish border. Published 11 February. The European Commission threatened in January to override parts of the protocol to ensure that jabs made in the EU didn’t move into mainland Britain using Northern Ireland as a back door without approval. Before the end of January the Irish Sea border would be law. It did include a role for the Northern Ireland Assembly, which could overturn the arrangement four years after its implementation. Strains emerged almost from the moment the protocol came into force, with images of empty food shelves flooding social media. But the election swept away the party's influence, giving Mr Johnson a comfortable majority. But then came a meeting with the then Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Leo Varadkar at Thornton Manor on Merseyside. BREXIT might be done but the battle over the Northern Ireland border is far from over, with fresh disputes over border protocols wreaking havoc with the fragile agreements in place. He said that the three-month grace period for supermarkets and suppliers, which was due to expire at the end of March, will be extended until October 1. On March 3, the British government said it would waive customs paperwork on food entering Northern Ireland until October, beyond the April 1 deadline it had agreed with the EU. What happens when a virus mutates? Home News. The Joint Report laid out three possibilities: It was that third option, known as the backstop, which brought a sea border firmly onto the agenda. Just two months after the signing of a Brexit trade deal, the issue of the Irish border has re-emerged as a serious sticking point between the UK and EU. Ahead of the first round of Brexit negotiations EU leaders identified three priority issues which needed to be sorted out before they would start talking about a trade deal. Video, Celebrating the world's largest female afro, Silverman apologises to Hilton for prison jokes, 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast, ‘Stop whining’ over Covid, Brazil’s president says, World's 'oldest wild bird' has chick at age of 70, UN 'yet to see proof' Princess Latifa is alive, Meghan accuses palace of 'perpetuating falsehoods'. This was a priority for the Irish government which wanted to avoid a situation where the border could later be used as leverage in the heat of a trade negotiation. However, the Irish government and the EU were not convinced as the plan would have potentially meant a new customs border in Ireland. There was no way it would support Mr Johnson's deal in Parliament. ... Angela Merkel likens Brexit Irish border question to Iron Curtain. A soft Brexit would mean soft trade borders; a hard Brexit would mean harder borders. It published a legal interpretation of the Joint Report explaining it would mean Northern Ireland effectively staying in the EU customs union and following many of the rules of the single market. We all thought the Irish Border Brexit crux was sorted long ago? The protocol was seen as an answer. "The draft legal text the commission have published would, if implemented, undermine the UK common market and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish Sea, and no UK prime minster could ever agree to it," she said. Following Brexit, the 310-mile (499-kilometer) frontier running from near Derry in the north to Dundalk on the east coast of Ireland became the EU’s new land border with the U.K. The DUP was on board with that idea as it would need consent from the Northern Ireland Assembly, which would likely have given the party a veto. The concern was that delays could hamper the free movement of people and goods between the two parts of Ireland, which was partitioned a century ago, and customs posts could become targets for violence. A hard Brexit meant leaving both the customs union and single market and reaching a trade deal like the one the EU has with Canada. But, by October, he was proposing an "all-island regulatory zone" which would effectively keep Northern Ireland in the EU's single market for agriculture, food and all manufactured goods. On a more practical basis, Northern Irish importers say the system has created more paperwork, delays and costs when goods are brought into the region. VideoCelebrating the world's largest female afro, Why Olivia Colman's new film will leave you disorientated, 'Liberating' to be able to speak - Meghan1, Silverman apologises to Hilton for prison jokes2, 'Hovering ship' photographed off Cornish coast3, Pope in Iraq: End violence and extremism4, ‘Stop whining’ over Covid, Brazil’s president says5, World's 'oldest wild bird' has chick at age of 706, Why Olivia Colman's new film will leave you disorientated7, China to tighten grip on Hong Kong elections8, UN 'yet to see proof' Princess Latifa is alive9, Meghan accuses palace of 'perpetuating falsehoods'10. By John CampbellBBC News NI Economics & Business Editor. IRISH Prime Minister Micheál Martin must be 'highly suspicious' of the EU after its 'spectacular blunder' on Friday evening, Prime Minister Boris Johnson's trade adviser has claimed. © 2021 BBC. If the measure gains the support of both the nationalist and unionist groups, there won’t be another vote for eight years. Instead, the EU said it would take legal action against the U.K. for breaching the Brexit deal. Further details on Irish sea border 'grace period', Brexit imports grace period 'may apply' to 15 firms, Pope lands in Iraq amid virus and security risks. The EU and UK have reached an unofficial agreement on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland and its land border to the EU. By keeping the land border free of potentially provocative checkpoints, both sides hope to prevent a return to the era of sectarian violence, which cost more than 3,000 lives between the late 1960s and the signature of a peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement, in 1998. It was in an interim agreement called the Joint Report that the UK implicitly conceded that an Irish Sea border could be a solution. Northern Ireland will be given a say on the protocol in 2024. Simply look at the EU's other external frontiers with non-single market countries, like the hard border between Hungary and Ukraine. Some British retailers interrupted sales into Northern Ireland while those issues were being resolved. In the days after the Joint Report there was a lack of agreement on what it would mean in practice. Yet the episode added to momentum behind the wider unionist campaign to undermine and abolish the protocol. Boris Johnson replaced Mrs May in July 2019, promising to get rid of the backstop. The decision to trigger the provision blindsided Dublin and London and set off a firestorm as it could have seen checks on the border between Ireland and … Still, the fact that the possibility is being openly discussed again is testament to the forces unleashed by Brexit. It’s unlikely anytime soon. The deal also allows Northern Irish exporters to have easy access to Europe’s single market and Britain’s internal market. Brexit: Inquiry into suspension of Irish Sea border checks. Mrs May was clear about what was being proposed. Brexit: Irish Sea border issues foreseen when deal was done. Essentially, the border has moved to the Irish Sea. EU’s vaccine blunder reopens Brexit battle over Irish border. During the Brexit referendum campaign in 2016 there was no single vision for... April 2017: The EU's negotiating guidelines. Tory MPs use short-lived announcement of export ban to call for overhaul of trade deal, as EU chief is attacked over U-turn.