Northern Ireland Protocol

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill: is it all just a ploy?

14 June 2022 Mattia Di Ubaldo is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and a Research Fellow in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. Michael Gasiorek is Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Professor of Economics at the University of Sussex Business School. The UK Government has published its bill on the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), making a clear move to try to force changes in the arrangements disciplining the economic regime applying to the portion of the UK that has remained in the EU Single Market post-Brexit. The points of strongest contention between the UK Government and the EU concern the custom and regulatory checks applying to trade flowing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland together with a list of additional issues resulting from Northern Ireland remaining part of the EU Single Market territory: the regulatory regime applying to firms in Northern Ireland, rules on VAT, the use of state subsidies, and the role of the European Court of Justice in overseeing the NIP. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-06-14T14:38:23+01:0014 June 2022|UK- EU, Uncategorised|0 Comments

Northern Ireland trade patterns and the row over the Protocol

31 May 2022 Ruby Acquah and Mattia Di Ubaldo are Fellows of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Research Fellows in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School Tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) have intensified as the UK Government (henceforth HMG) announced plans to introduce legislation that would enable it to disapply parts of the Protocol. The UK has often demanded the re-negotiation of the NIP due to its economic costs, and a too strict application by the EU. Recently, Assembly elections in Northern Ireland escalated the urgency of resolving the issue, as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is currently refusing, as part of its protest against the NIP, to participate in the power-sharing executive. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-05-31T10:42:43+01:0031 May 2022|UK- EU|0 Comments

What we can do to fix Brexit and the Irish Border crisis

23 May 2022 Peter Holmes is a Fellow of the UK Trade Policy Observatory and Emeritus Reader in Economics at the University of Sussex Business School UK trade with Europe has significantly fallen off (see UKTPO BP 63 for an early assessment). UK GDP has fallen by 4%. If we cancel the Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP) – which is all the talk at the moment – the economic consequences of Brexit will get worse and let’s not even think about the political consequences. Is any of this fixable? Yes, if we look ahead to 2025 when the Brexit agreement with the EU—formally known as the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) —is up for its 5-yearly review. UK stakeholders, including political parties planning their manifestoes ahead of the next UK general election in 2024, should consider their Brexit positions now – but it’s not a case of leave or remain, rather a case of ‘tweak the Brexit agreement to something that better suits us’. […]

By Nick Phipps|2022-05-23T11:48:39+01:0023 May 2022|UK- EU|1 Comment

A sprat over nothing?

29 October 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory at the University of Sussex. The impounding of a UK fishing boat by the French authorities on Thursday is symptomatic of the tensions in the wider political relationship between the UK and France, which goes beyond the implementation of the fisheries part of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) with the EU. It is also symptomatic of the political importance of the fisheries sector on both sides of the Channel. Brexit was about ‘taking back control’, and with regard to fishing, for the UK Government, that meant taking back control of UK waters. The actual agreement, however, fell far short of what the fisheries industry had hoped for. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-10-29T10:03:35+01:0029 October 2021|UK- EU|0 Comments

Honesty is such a lonely word…

22 July 2021 Michael Gasiorek is Professor of Economics and Director of the UK Trade Policy Observatory (UKTPO) at the University of Sussex. L. Alan Winters is Professor of Economics and Founding Director of the UKTPO. The UK Government’s command paper on Northern Ireland published yesterday (21 July 2021) is significant in four regards. First, because it explicitly recognises – at length – that the Protocol is not working (at least not for the UK) and needs to be modified in form or in implementation. This is almost certainly correct. […]

By Nick Phipps|2021-07-22T10:41:50+01:0022 July 2021|UK- EU|100 Comments