Protocol Deadlock Means Brexit Still Won't Get Done

Britain celebrates two momentous anniversaries next month.

- Sean O'grady

The first, broadly consensual and popular, will be the platinum jubilee of the Queen's accession. There will be cakes, street parties, bank holidays and the pubs will be open later.

A few weeks later, on 23 June, the sixth anniversary of the Brexit referendum will be marked in more subdued and different ways. The date Nigel Farage hailed as Britain's Independence Day can at least unite the nation on one particular proposition: that Brexit hasn't, after all this time, been “done”.

The government seems to think that fresh legislation to override the Northern Ireland protocol, which allows for checks on some goods moving between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will finally get this bit of Brexit done. However, the chances look slim.

The politics of all this is as familiar as it is complicated, tied in with the ancient Irish question, and an incipient civil war for the soul of the Conservative Party. The immediate question is whether the government will go ahead with the latest threat to abandon its endless talks with the EU over the protocol, and scrap the agreed checks on goods. Ministers are understandably concerned about the future of the Northern Ireland Executive, the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and peace on the island of Ireland. They are frustrated with the lack of progress from the talks with the EU. The EU is also annoyed by the British seeking to renegotiate or renege on an international treaty solemnly entered into.