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TThe Union Jack proudly flew over the Victoria Orange Hall, a community center in the port of Larne in Northern Ireland on Friday. The ferries arrived and the trucks started. In many ways, it seemed that business, and commerce, were business as usual.
But tensions have been high in recent days due to post-Brexit border issues. In much of Northern Ireland, supermarkets are struggling to fill shelves because Great Britain’s exporters weren’t prepared for new checks, so shipments haven’t arrived.
Then 10 days ago, the European Commission intervened, in the clumsiest way, threatening to invoke the Article 16 “last resort” clause of the Brexit withdrawal agreement in order to establish border controls to prevent the UK government from using Northern Ireland as a backup. gate route to secure EU supply of Covid-19 vaccine. All parties were enraged and the commission backed down.
Opinion on the streets of Larne is divided as to what all this talk about land and sea borders means.
Two women out for a walk, Ivy and Sandy, said that “there were no bad vibes in the city” and that the tensions over the Northern Ireland protocol, which the DUP now wants removed because it creates a border in the Irish Sea, it would disappear. .
But Joseph, in his early 60s, was more concerned. There has been graffiti suggesting that trade unionists have been misled. “They sold us a puppy.
“They told us to vote for this and they promised us that we would still be part of the UK, but we are not part of the UK. How can we be if they can’t import food and goods from Scotland? How can they say there is no border in the Irish Sea when companies have to fill out 80 pages of paperwork for whatever they send?
“Some people don’t tell the truth and there is a strong feeling about it. There are always ‘them’ in the background, “he said before beginning his daily exercise in the city.
On Wednesday, when questioned by the prime minister, Ian Paisley Jr. of the DUP told Boris Johnson in a chilling speech that “protocol has betrayed us and made us feel like foreigners in our own country.” He asked Johnson: “Are you going to legislate, if necessary, to remove impediments to trade in Northern Ireland? Will he be a man of his word and will he allow businessmen in my constituency to remove unnecessary documentation that he told us we could throw away? Prime Minister, be the unionist we need you to be. “
Stephen Kelly, chief executive of Manufacturing NI, which represents all manner of manufacturers in Northern Ireland, many of whom have been struggling with the new rules, says that views on Brexit inevitably fuel wider historical divisions.
Everything in Northern Ireland is viewed through an identity filter. Trade unionism is fundamentally opposed to the protocol because it means that Northern Ireland is different from the rest of the UK, while nationalism and the moderate middle ground are fundamentally opposed to Brexit and support the protocol. “
A security source predicted that strong leadership would be needed to repair the damage caused by the commission’s Article 16 mistake. The source said the EU had always tried to occupy the moral ground, insisting that it would do everything possible to protect the Good Friday deal “and then they go and activate the 16th, which blew everything out of the water.
“How do you get back to a position where the adults in the room are acting in a way that provides more stability and doesn’t undermine what little stability there is?”
The consequences of Brexit on the island of Ireland have, due to its history, a unique political burden. But just over a month after the UK left the EU, the economic effects of the exit are hitting people and their businesses just as hard across the country.
The added bureaucracy, customs controls, and the added costs of shipping goods to the EU and receiving them from the mainland have taken many by surprise. Farmers cannot export livestock to the mainland from January 1. Fishermen cannot sell fresh fish in the EU because it skyrockets before it can get there, even though fishing communities were told that Brexit would be their salvation after decades of struggle and decline.
The fashion industry warns of the dire consequences of VAT and other problems affecting its business; The musicians and their teams say they are unable to plan trips to the EU due to problems with work permits and visas. Even flowers from the Netherlands, it seems, could be more expensive this year on Valentine’s Day.
With the pandemic and efforts to vaccinate an entire population dominating the news, the damage to the UK economy is not making headlines the way it would in normal times. But the numbers are staggering, and everyone seems to have a story about delayed packages at the borders.
The Road Transport Association has revealed to the Observer, after surveying its members, UK exports to the EU fell a staggering 68% in January compared to the same period in 2020. Richard Burnett, executive director of the RHA says he is “very frustrated” that his organization It warned of problems throughout last year, but the government did not listen enough and is still not listening now.
Many hundreds of UK companies are now planning to relocate their operations to the EU in order to more easily distribute their products within the single market. Some have stopped all exports to the EU. The governments of several EU countries are seeking to attract British companies with financial incentives.
Kelly says trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland has picked up again since early January, but in part because exporters choose to go through NI to bring goods to the Republic, whose imports from the UK are said to have dropped by a 60%.
Companies in Northern Ireland are increasingly sourcing products locally and from countries other than the UK. “The fundamental challenge here is that the UK’s position as a distribution center for these islands is greatly diminished by Brexit and people are choosing other routes, so we would have a lot of manufacturers here that would now source from the EU and receive things directly. Kelly says.
Stability is threatened in Northern Ireland, UK exports to the EU have plummeted, many UK companies are moving jobs and operations overseas, fishing communities feel betrayed. As one managing director of a small UK company, which has had to cease all exports to the EU, put it: “We were expecting difficulties, but the variety of problems that Brexit has created across the board for us and many others is completely out of scale. “
