There’s growing criticism in Dublin of the government’s strategy of putting all its eggs in one backstop basket (of which more anon). Government and opposition spokesmen alike respond that actually, the backstop was one of Theresa May’s clever ideas.
However, Paul Bew has an interesting line on the matter:
The Withdrawal Agreement, alas, places key areas of such co-operation entirely under the operation of a new EU-led regime – a regime which begins from day one of the implementation of the backstop.
UK government reassurances about the future miss the point. The damage to the delicate structure of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement would already have been done by the implementation of the backstop.
This is because regulations, previously within the disposal of the parties to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement within Northern Ireland, would be handed to agencies outside their control (see, for example, pages 425-435 of the Withdrawal Agreement).
The startling effect of this would be that a Good Friday Agreement — created in 1998 to ensure bottom-up consent — would now be replaced by a top-down arrangement. This would not protect the Good Friday Agreement but subvert it.
As Rt Hon Lord Murphy of Torfaen, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, told the House of Lords before Christmas, there have been two big failures in the negotiations:
‘…the failure to restore the institutions in Northern Ireland and the failure of the Brussels negotiations to understand why the principles that underpin the Good Friday Agreement should have underpinned the negotiations regarding Brexit borders and the backstop as well.’ [Emphasis added
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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