usual, the maneuver is nonetheless detestable. With each disappointment in domestic politics, Boris Johnson draws his ultimate weapon, the conflict with the European Union (EU), intended to mobilize his supporters and to divert British opinion from his own turpitudes. This is evidenced by the presentation, Monday, June 13, in the Parliament of Westminster, of a bill suppressing whole sections of the “North Irish protocol”, a sensitive part of the 2019 Brexit agreement with the EU.
While he himself initialed this international treaty, the British Prime Minister calls him unilaterally on crucial points. The “protocol” aims to reconcile two objectives: maintaining an Ireland without border in order to guarantee peace on the island, and prevents Northern Ireland from becoming a fraudulent input airlock in the European single market. To do this, Northern Ireland has been endowed with a mixed status: the province was maintained both in the British customs area and in the EU single market.
such arrangement supposes customs and sanitary controls between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. A constraint rejects the DUP, North Irish Unionist Party Allied with Boris Johnson, whose elected officials refuse to sit in the local government of Belfast as long as the “protocol” with the EU is not repealed.
Mandate in danger
To satisfy them, Mr. Johnson wants to approve a law that removes controls for goods from Great Britain but intended for Northern Ireland. He also wishes to withdraw from twenty-seven control over state aid and VAT in the province. In addition, the text withdraws from the Court of Justice of the European Union the role of arbitrator in the event of a conflict.
The motivations put forward by the Johnson government – the “protocol” would have destabilized the country – are not very credible: not only North Ireland enjoys better economic health than the rest of the kingdom thanks to its privileged status, but The majority of recently elected North Irish deputies defend the “protocol”.
In reality, the Prime Minister seeks to be a diversion, a few days after 41 % of the deputies of his own party refused him confidence, highlighting the division of the Conservatives and weakening his own position. Aimed by a parliamentary investigation into his possible lies to deputies about the watered receptions of Downing Street during confinement, Mr. Johnson knows his mandate in danger. The fate of the bill presented to the municipalities is also uncertain: it could be rejected by the Chamber of Lords, which many members believe that it compromises the reputation of the international signature of the United Kingdom.
In such a context, the European Union, whose compromise offers have been postponed, should not weaken. The offense procedure targeting London, opened in 2021 but suspended during unsuccessful negotiations, must be relaunched. The possibility of customs retaliatory measures should not be ruled out. The twenty-seven must continue to guarantee peace in Ireland. They cannot accept that Brexit leads to create, in Northern Ireland, a breach in the single market, one of the foundations of the Union.
that Boris Johnson plays the card of the conflict with his neighbors when the return of war on the continent requires flawless European solidarity gives the measure of his cynicism and the risk of isolation that he will run in the kingdom -Uni.