Britain’s bill to rip up the Northern Ireland protocol is a terrible idea

Conservatives won the 2019 general election, they did so on the promise of getting Brexit done. A withdrawal agreement with the soon followed. But far from being done, that deal is by the Tories themselves. On June 13th, the government introduced a bill that would give it powers to override large chunks of the . This bit of the treaty keeps the province (but not Great Britain) in the European Union’s single market for goods, ensuring that there are no border controls on the island of Ireland but creating a customs and regulatory border in the Irish Sea instead. That the protocol needs adapting is beyond dispute. It imposes pettifogging bureaucracy on imports from the mainland into Northern Ireland; sending beef-flavoured crisps across the Irish Sea requires a vet to give the all-clear. Such absurdities do not just load costs onto firms and consumers. The protocol has also stoked fierce opposition from the largest pro-unionist party, the Democratic Unionist Party (), which is refusing to rejoin the devolved executive until it is scrapped or radically changed. Although a majority of assembly members in the province want to keep the protocol, the political infrastructure of Northern Ireland requires nationalists and unionists to co-operate.