Brexit: Von der Leyen rejects Boris Johnson bid to renegotiate Irish protocol

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Brexit: Von der Leyen rejects Boris Johnson bid to renegotiate Irish protocol

EU has already proposed changes to lessen impact on Northern Irish citizens, say officials

Jennifer Rankin in Brussels and Aubrey Allegretti
Thu 22 Jul 2021 15.50 BST

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has rejected Boris Johnson’s move to renegotiate the Northern Irish protocol, raising the temperature of a simmering Brexit row.

“The EU will continue to be creative and flexible within the protocol framework. But we will not renegotiate,” she said after a call with the prime minister on Thursday.

EU sources said the call lasted about 30 minutes, and Von der Leyen made clear they spoke at Johnson’s request.

While not a surprise, her refusal – less than 24 hours after the government set out a plan to renegotiate a core part of the Brexit deal – is a blow to Johnson, who made repeated false claims that there would be no customs checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

The EU has united against the UK blueprint to rewrite the Northern Irish protocol, a hard-fought agreement with Johnson in 2019 that created a customs border in the Irish Sea.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/22/von-der-leyen-rejects-boris-johnson-bid-to-renegotiate-irish-protocol

[abqtommy]

1. How's that Brexit workin' out for all of you in the U.K.? BO "Ya Doesn't Hafta Call Me

Johnson" JO is still doing to you what Former Orange Lardo tried to do to us here in the U.S. and
we sure dodged a bullet when we got rid of him.

[zipplewrath]

2. Ireland was always the "problem"

The peace in Ireland is entirely because the EU kept the loyalists in check and the republicans quiet. This was entirely because Northern Ireland was able to believe two things at once, that they were unified, and yet separate, at the same time. There was no border, yet the citizens of NI could claim citizenship in the UK. If loyalists over stepped, the EU kept them in check. If the republicans felt that they were being marginalized, they had a body to which they could appeal, nonviolently. It kept the peace. Once you create a border, you're going to return the previous problems.

The answer is currently unachievable, but none the less the only one that will work. The UK needs to allow unification, and yet extend UK citizenship to any NI citizen that wants it. Extend NHS benefits (and facilities) to NI along with any other benefits that make sense. They could even create a system in which NI "citizens" can choose to have grievances adjudicated in British courts, up to and including criminal offenses. Sort of a "two state solution" in one piece of land. But as I say, right now no one wants to discuss such a thing.