>Dr Andrew McCormick, a Stormont official who played a central role as the UK Government negotiated the Brexit deal, said that responsibility for the Northern Ireland Protocol lies “fairly and squarely” with Boris Johnson and his ministers.
>
>In an article for The Constitution Society, the former civil servant says that the UK Government understood the consequences of the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.
>
>The protocol, which was designed to avoid a border on the island of Ireland, creates a new series of checks on some trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
>
>“It is hard to imagine anything (other than Brexit itself) with greater democratic legitimacy under the UK constitution than something that was the very centre of the manifesto on which a government secured a clear majority in a general election,” says Dr McCormick.
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>“There is little credibility in any argument that the UK government either did not anticipate the implications of what it had agreed, or was constrained and unable to choose any other option.” …
>
>([Article 🪞](https://archive.ph/u8mQR))
I legitimately think that Sinn Fein could win by a landslide this year. The DUP have been such a shitshow.
And BritGov continuously manipulating NI to creat a crisis to try and leverage concessions from EU.
We cannot simultaneously be outside the EU and share a border with Ireland but not impose import/export checks on that border. No amount of bluster, rhetoric, negotiation, outrage or simply claiming that ‘Brexit is done’ will change that issue. This is not Schrödinger’s cat, you cannot be both in and out of the EU at the same time. The problem is, there is no solution.
4 comments
>Dr Andrew McCormick, a Stormont official who played a central role as the UK Government negotiated the Brexit deal, said that responsibility for the Northern Ireland Protocol lies “fairly and squarely” with Boris Johnson and his ministers.
>
>In an article for The Constitution Society, the former civil servant says that the UK Government understood the consequences of the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland.
>
>The protocol, which was designed to avoid a border on the island of Ireland, creates a new series of checks on some trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
>
>“It is hard to imagine anything (other than Brexit itself) with greater democratic legitimacy under the UK constitution than something that was the very centre of the manifesto on which a government secured a clear majority in a general election,” says Dr McCormick.
>
>“There is little credibility in any argument that the UK government either did not anticipate the implications of what it had agreed, or was constrained and unable to choose any other option.” …
>
>([Article 🪞](https://archive.ph/u8mQR))
–
Of the document, eight page pdf:
>[The Constitution Society: The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement and Brexit – A briefing note — Dr Andrew McCormick (PDF)](https://consoc.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/GFA-and-Brexit-Andrew-McCormick-.pdf)
with a good tl;dr summary by Tony Connelly of it here:
>[Former Stormont official criticises UK govt’s attitude over NI Protocol](https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2022/0427/1294751-protocol-andrew-mccormick/)
I legitimately think that Sinn Fein could win by a landslide this year. The DUP have been such a shitshow.
And BritGov continuously manipulating NI to creat a crisis to try and leverage concessions from EU.
We cannot simultaneously be outside the EU and share a border with Ireland but not impose import/export checks on that border. No amount of bluster, rhetoric, negotiation, outrage or simply claiming that ‘Brexit is done’ will change that issue. This is not Schrödinger’s cat, you cannot be both in and out of the EU at the same time. The problem is, there is no solution.