Breaking the deck in the Irish Sea

The fact that Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the IRA, won the last elections in Northern Ireland has not pleased either its closest rivals in the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) or Boris Johnson's British government. It is the first time in a century that such a result has occurred, which, according to the 1998 Good Friday Peace Agreement, stipulates that the government that emerges from the Stormont Parliament must be a coalition government, with the first minister belonging to the winning majority and the deputy first minister to the second. Until now, the first place has always been occupied by a Protestant from the DUP, now Jeffrey Donaldson, but now it should be the Sinn Fein candidate and winner of the elections, the Catholic Michelle O'Neill.

It looks like it is going to be very difficult for that to happen, and that affects Europe as a whole. Among other issues considered of lesser importance, the DUP had raised as its main political objective the abrogation of the so-called Irish Protocol, that is, the agreement reached in extremis between the United Kingdom and the European Union to unravel the post-Brexit situation. According to what Boris Johnson agreed and signed in 2018, Northern Ireland would enjoy a special status, whereby the region would continue to be bound by the rules of the EU's internal market. To this end, the border would be located in the waters of the Irish Sea, so that goods arriving in Northern Irish ports from Britain would have to undergo the same stringent customs and health checks that all goods arriving in any EU country from a third country must undergo.

The DUP protesters saw the very signing of the Protocol as a betrayal by Johnson and have now upped the ante, to the point of turning the issue into a 'casus belli', threatening that they will not allow the formation of the new government in line with the results of the last election if this protocol "which alienates us from London" is not annulled.

It is not known whether induced or not, the truth is that such threats prompted the British Foreign Minister, Liz Truss, to pick up the phone and call the vice-president of the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic, to warn him that the Government chaired by Johnson is preparing to unilaterally abolish the mandatory customs and health controls. A measure that, needless to say, the EU considers totally unacceptable.

The head of British diplomacy argues that "the Northern Ireland protocol is the biggest obstacle to forming a government in Belfast", in addition to the serious disruption to trade, whose development is creating two categories of citizens, since those who live in the United Kingdom are not treated in the same way as those who are also British in Northern Ireland.

Apart from the fact that this action would demonstrate once again - there are numerous examples - that the UK's reputation for respecting international treaties is greatly overrated, the impression emerges of wanting to impose blackmail, so that the party that lost the election would end up achieving what it set out to do.

There is evidently another, much more respectful solution, which would be to let the winning Sinn Fein implement its programme, initially much more focused on the social chapter, but without losing sight of its main objective: the reunification of the island after submitting such a desire to a referendum. Although it is careful not to make this a 'sine qua non' condition, the fact is that such a referendum would enjoy a large majority of support today. For example, alongside the 27 seats won by Sinn Fein and the DUP's 25, there are also the 17 of Alliance, a formation that has evolved to favour the reunification consultation, which would also enjoy the support of a population that demographically has been shaping a map that is mostly Catholic, which is as much to say in favour of a single independent Ireland fully integrated into the European Union as it is in favour of a single, independent Ireland.

Threat for threat, the EU would also be obliged to act if London were to remove the aforementioned protocol. It could, of course, open a sanctions dossier, but above all it could suspend the free trade agreement in force with the UK, i.e. impose tariffs and surcharges on British goods. Such a hypothetical trade war is certainly madness, but the responsibility for triggering it would clearly lie entirely with Boris Johnson's government.