For Gouda and Ulster

The problem with an evidence resistant subculture is that they are often surprised by events.

From the Brexit Referendum result in 2016, it was clear to anyone with the facility of reason that the issue of the Irish land border was going to be pivotal.

Even before the votes were counted, I was concerned.

I wrote this piece for Bella Caledonia about why a vote to leave the EU could re-impose a militarised border on this island.

The comments below the article now make for rather amusing reading.

Indeed, no one in the border counties in 2016 could foresee a situation post-Brexit where a hard border would not lead to a military footprint being part of our lives again.

There is no doubt that if the Northern Ireland Protocol had not been brought in, then there would have been physical infrastructure an hour from my door here in Dún na nGall.

Throughout the negotiations on the Withdrawal Agreement, the Brits were just waiting for the 11th-hour betrayal of Paddy by the folks in Brussels.

It never happened.

Until Dublin signed off on the deal, it was a non-starter.

Prime Minister Theresa May diced that “the backstop” was the option.

That meant that the entire UK would remain in the Single Market and the Customs Union.

She couldn’t get that through the Commons with the DUP voting against her at every turn.

The Boris, her successor, faced down the barrel of No Deal at his meeting in the Wirral with Leo Varadkar and decided to throw  Narne Arne under the bus.

The Northern Ireland Protocol was the only solution, and so it has come to pass.

Since January the first there has been more and more evidence that the Northern Ireland Protocol will have a long-lasting impact on the relationship between GB and NI.

Yesterday, this turned up on my Twitter feed.

 

This news infuriated the intellectual wing of “Layalism” and, I couldn’t resist.

For the avoidance of doubt, the good folk at the Ethical Dairy are not alone.

What will happen, in time is that retail outlets in Northern Ireland will source alternative products on the rest of the island and the rest of the Single Market.

Importing from GB will simply be not worth the hassle.

Then party line among pro-Brexit types is that these are merely teething problems with new paperwork.

However, one chap in road haulage recently stated to me that what now exists at the ports in Northern  Ireland is “a proper third country border”.

The Six Counties is now a hybrid UK/EU joint authority area for trade and commercial regulations.

In that sense, it cannot be said to be “as British as Finchley”.

Of course, it never was, but the fiction kept Sammy Wilson warm at night.

Brexit is a game-changer.

The gravitational pull on the Six Counties is to ultimately bring about an economic re-alignment with the Republic and the rest of the European Union.

This will inevitably weaken their connection to GB.

Moreover, that is even before Sammy, and his staunch pals consider the existential crisis of Scottish independence.

The long-term barriers to imports from  GB  are not going to go away, you know.

The realities of this new dispensation have finally reached the collective consciousness of “Layalism”.

The Northern Ireland Protocol will be voted on by the Stormeniont Assembly in 2024 and will only require a simple majority.

It is almost certain that the pro-Brexit unionist parties will be in the minority then and be outvoted.

By that time business in the Six Counties will be increasingly orientated away from GB and towards the Single Market via the  Republic of Ireland.

Sammy and Billy are on the wrong side of history, and I wouldn’t swap places with them.

It’s simply a case of hard cheese.