The Northern Ireland Protocol foundered a few days after it entered into force, on January 1, 2021, in the face of opposition from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the northern Irish majority force that supported Brexit but perceived an implicit dilution of Protestant identity. -British in the region in the agreement agreed two years earlier by Prime Minister Boris Johnson in order to close the Treaty of the Withdrawal of the European Union.
The European Commission was about to bring the project to the bottom when it unilaterally suspended its implementation to prevent Covid vaccines from reaching Belfast. The emergency measure only lasted a few minutes, but it sparked a political storm and fueled popular unrest, leading to serious riots in Northern Ireland.
The British Government ignored the EU and extended the grace period in the execution of the new customs controls and red tape in the export of products from Great Britain to Ulster. The protocol is still not fully implemented.
Jeffrey Donaldson, a deputy in Westminster, won the leadership of the DUP, in June 2021, after an internal crisis that struck down Arlene Foster as the territory’s chief minister. The convert leader published “seven tests” that the reformed protocol must pass to ensure the support of the unionist bloc. The seven includes the elimination of the commercial border in the Irish Sea and a reference to the Union Treaty of 1800, which guarantees equal privileges to all citizens of the United Kingdom.
In February 2022, the DUP withdrew from the autonomous government and has since boycotted the restitution of the institutions. Three months later, damaged by the fissures in unionism, it fell back in the regional elections, giving Sinn Fein the symbolic and historic victory as the most voted party in the region. The future of Brexit, the restoration of Northern Ireland autonomy and the Good Friday peace agreement, which turns 25 on April 10, depends on the decision that the DUP now makes.
Anti-Protocol protests have periodically resurfaced in Northern Irish port cities and at urban intersections between the two feuding communities, pro-British unionist-loyalist and Irish nationalist-republican, without igniting the violent sectarian battles of previous decades. to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. Young people from loyalist neighborhoods, who have not benefited from the peace process, are now leading the riots, with boys aged 13 and 15 among those detained by law enforcement. The assassination attempt on a police inspector in Omagh, who remains hospitalized in critical condition, was a stark reminder that dissenting Republicans have not buried all their weapons.
Johnson gave the green light, in June 2022, to the Protocol bill, which allows British ministers to unilaterally repeal rules and conditions agreed with the EU on Northern Ireland. The controversial proposal, which has raised taunts and warnings in Brussels and Washington, also contemplates accepted practical reforms of the protocol, such as the creation of two red and green channels for the export of products from Great Britain.
The arrival of Rishi Sunak at the head of the United Kingdom in October last year, after the resignation of Johnson and the sudden fall of Liz Truss, brought serenity in relations with the EU. Negotiations, which had been stalled for eight months, were resumed and led to the new protocol agreement. The DUP has warned that it will not rush its verdict and will pronounce itself after studying the legal text of the commitments signed in Windsor by Sunak and the president of the EC, Ursula von der Leyen. Unionists feel betrayed by Johnson and do not want to fall into the same trap.
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