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UUP LEADER DOUG Beattie has said the goods being carried by Ukrainian refugees into the EU shows there is no need for the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Speaking on BBC’s The Nolan Show this morning, Beattie said it was “quite right” that refugees are not subject to checks but that it also shows the Protocol as it currently exists was “untenable”.
The Protocol is a post-Brexit mechanism agreed between the UK and EU that allows Northern Ireland to effectively remain part of the EU’s single market for goods while also being part of the UK’s customs territory.
To maintain EU standards within the single market, some checks are required on goods entering Northern Ireland from Britain, something which is strongly objected to by unionists politicians in Northern Ireland.
Speaking this morning, Beattie said there was “no basis” for checks on goods coming from Britain if those goods were remaining in Northern Ireland.
He compared it to the refugee situation across the EU:
This is not rocket science here, we have got a geopolitical situation in the world here where a country has been invaded in Ukraine, and five million of its people have left Ukraine and gone into the EU single market with all of their vehicles, all of their goods, all of their animals, all of their pets, none of the checks had been done on that and quite rightly so. So five million people have gone into the EU single market without checks, yet we’re going to argue about a bottle of olive oil coming from Great Britain to Northern Ireland that has to be checked? It’s untenable and people know it’s untenable.
Beattie acknowledged that there are some businesses that are “doing very well out of the Protocol” but that there are others “on their knees because of the checks”.
He argued that while the solution to the Protocol is an issue for the UK government and EU representatives to resolve, he thinks that Northern Irish politicians should be “in the room”.
The UUP leader said this is why the Executive should be “up and running again”.
As the largest nationalist and unionist parties, both Sinn Féin and the DUP must be part of the Executive as part of power-sharing rules. The DUP has said that the Protocol must be changed before they enter the Executive but Beattie has suggested that a stated intention of the British government may be sufficient.
Tomorrow, the UK government will announce its legislative plans as part of the Queen’s Speech and Beattie says he is hopeful that there would be “a form of words” relating to the Protocol.
There’s no basis for any checks, that Irish Sea border does not need to be there. The UK government know that, the EU realise that and if I’m really honest, I think all of the other political party leaders realise that, there is absolutely no basis for those checks.
“So that I think is going to come about pretty quickly from this moment onwards, I would suggest that there could be something maybe in the Queen’s Speech, I people have said that there won’t be but there will be a different form of words, a form of words which will say something like: ‘My ministers will legislate to protect the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and then we will move to stopping these checks which do not need to take place’.”
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Just get on with it, unionists will use any excuse to avoid the deputy first minister position.
British food safety standards recently signed of on allowing fish and vegetables from close to Fukushima nuclear plant into their food chain. This is the type of stuff that the protocol prevents from entering EU.
Highlights Britians race to standards bottom to promote profits.
There’s a lot less chance of Doug Beattie being needed than the Protocol.
It’s not like they’re a packet of crisps. Dougie trying to keep up with the DUP.
@Jason Healy: too late election over
Does he not realise that any “goods”, as he calls them, that the Ukrainian refugees are carrying are probably their last few possesions from their homeland, where as goods leaving the UK for the EU are goods being sold for profit as as such require to be checked for standards
UKRAINE REFUGEES are arriving here homeless and shell shocked …what is this guy talking about.. unbelievable
Yawn.
Exposing his true colours….Trying to keep one foot in the DUP camp.But at least he is in favour of power sharing.
Ignorance and racism all in one go!
I will be going from GB to Northern Ireland next month for a holiday and am taking my dog with me. Under the NI Protocol my dog will need to have an EU Animal Health Certificate, including an injection against rabies. The last case of rabies in either GB or the island of Ireland was in 1912. Could one of those people who support the Protocol explain to me why the EU insists on this anti-rabies injection in Northern Ireland? Or, to put it another way, is there any reason why the Protocol should not be renegotiated to get rid of obvious nonsense in it?
@Patrick Brompton: Why not email you question onto either Boris Johnston or sir Jeff. It was Boris’s Brexit deal that introduced the protocol supported by the DUP.
It would be the same rules if you went on holidays to France or any other EU country. Britain can’t except special treatment when it left europe. It’s the same for every country that’s not a member of europe.
@Patrick Brompton: — It seems logical to me that there have been no cases of rabies because of dog owners having to comply with necessary regulations, or “nonsense” as you seem to refer to them as.
@leartius: Both Boris and Sir Jeff believe that the NI Protocol should be renegotiated. I would like an answer from someone who does not, explaining why not.
@Patrick Brompton: same rule applies if I take my dog from Éire into the U. K
@E.J. Murray: You are, with respect, making the mistake of thinking that the EU can take credit for the absence of rabies from Ireland. If the last case in either GB or Ireland was in 1912, then the absence of rabies from these islands was nothing to do with the EU before it came into existence. I am not asking for the EU’s requirement for an Animal Health Certificate to be removed for dogs going to Continental Europe. But if a dog is travelling between GB and Northern Ireland, it is a nonsense for the EU to insist on it having an anti-rabies injection. It would still be un-necessary if the dog crosses the border.
@Jim Deck: it’s a nonsense from GB to Ireland and an equal nonsense from Ireland to GB. Let us have a bonfire of unnecessary rules!
@Patrick Brompton: you mean UK to Ireland or Ireland to UK, don’t you? Those are the names of the two nation states in question, Northern Ireland being a part of UK.
And as for your question- tough. You signed an international treaty in 1998 (GFA). Only way to preserve that with brexit is the NI Protocol.
After that, ‘expecting’ any country to make ‘special’ exceptions for the UK is both embarrassing and a clue to UK’s problem: live up to your agreements OR face consequences.
Now bore off.
@Patrick Brompton: — You are, with respect, making the mistake of thinking that I credit the EU with the absence of rabies in Ireland. Even a brick knows that the EU didn’t exist in 1912. I think it nonsense that someone thinks it nonsense for preventing rabies from making a comeback. Perhaps you should think of another excuse for ditching the Protocol that Johnson signed up to?
@Patrick Brompton: my understanding of that particular situation is that any dogs coming from outside the EU into an EU country is required under EU law to get that vacation. Now that GB is no longer in the EU and since the border with the republic is frictionless to honour the terms of the GFA it is a precaution to allow you free movement through the whole Island of Ireland while here. If there was border checks between the republic and the partitioned six counties this wouldn’t be needed, but I’m afraid the terms of the GFA should never be or hopefully will never be over ruled. And for your information the government in Westminster negotiated the terms of both the GFA and the NI protocol. If they made a bags of any of those negotiations then your frustration should be directed at them.
@Patrick Brompton: Because years were spent negotiating Brexit, the stumbling block of NI to a clean break was identified long before the Brexit vote took place and played down by the Pro Brexit campaign the figureheads of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson.
After the vote it was claimed it could be resolved through technologies that still don’t exist and then through the inclusion of the backstop mechanism proposed by the UK that would activate if the said technologies didn’t appear, the UK then proposed the backstop to become the protocol, because it was deemed to be the workable solution, then they suspended parts of it unilaterally, breaching all previous agreements and now the UK claims renegotiation is the answer, to an agreement that was modified 3 times to their proposed solutions.
@Liam MacSuibhne: This particular rule applies as between GB and Northern Ireland only, not the UK and the Republic.
@Andy mc Laughlin: Thank you for your thoughtful reply. I am no defender of either Johnson or Farrage. I am happy to accept that BoJo made a mess of the NI Protocol. But now that we can see the mess why not amend the Protocol to at least remove totally unnecessary restrictions such as the requirement for an Animal Health Certificate as between GB and Northern Ireland?
@Andy mc Laughlin: My frustration is directed to the EU because it is imposing a rule on the island of Ireland for political reasons which has no basis in reality. I have a vet’s appointment today for a rabies vaccine for the dog which is an unnecessary expense; and another in three weeks’ time to pick up and pay for the Animal Health Certificate. I voted Remain but it is this sort of expensive bureaucracy which makes people in the UK very anti-EU.
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