There can be few people who do not now realise how disastrous the Northern Ireland Protocol is for that part of the UK. It is divisive, restrictive and is causing real harm to the local economy.
But this terrible arrangement is not just bad for that part of the realm – it’s bad for the rest of the UK as well. That’s because, two years after we formally left the EU, the Protocol still gives Brussels a hold over wider UK policy-making.
For example, it is probably fair to say that if it wasn’t for the pernicious effects of the Protocol, every family in Britain could be £100 a year better off from scrapping VAT on fuel bills.
After all, the power to set our own VAT rates was rightly hailed as one of the benefits of quitting the EU.
And with households facing a cost of living spike, driven by spiralling energy costs, the UK government knew that a cut in VAT on energy would help those struggling with their cost of living and deliver on our manifesto pledge.
But this very Tory-friendly, tax-cutting idea was effectively ruled out because it could not take effect in NI where VAT rates on domestic fuel bills must still match EU levels.
Allies of Chancellor Rishi Sunak may say the VAT cut was ruled out because it would also benefit wealthy people who didn’t need it. However, thanks to the Protocol, it was also just too politically embarrassing for Ministers to deliver a tax cut which helped with spiralling energy bills in Great Britain but not in NI.
So torn between scrapping VAT in Great Britain and leaving Northern Ireland out, or doing nothing at all, the Government chose to leave VAT on energy in place.
But that’s not all.
The Protocol also gives the EU power over whether the UK, post Brexit, can change our rules on the state aid we give to industry and the economy at large. The EU claims the purpose of the protocol is to protect the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, (GFA) by keeping the north/south border open.
However ironically, the only people now threatening to re-introduce border checks between Northern Ireland and Ireland in the event of a dispute is the EU. The reality is that Brussels is trying to use the Protocol to do as much damage to the UK-wide single market as they can.
Already the Protocol is leading to real economic harm in the NI economy. Trade is clearly being diverted to the Irish Republic in contravention of the agreement.
Furthermore, no less a figure than Lord Trimble, architect of the Good Friday Agreement, has made it very clear the EU is now damaging the social balance in Northern Ireland - again in contravention of the agreement.
There is already a better way to protect the GFA and keep the border open without border checks.
It is called ‘Mutual Enforcement’.
This involves both the EU and the UK mutually enforcing each other’s rules, regulations and taxes for companies exporting into each other’s territory.
Any company operating out of NI would be required to declare that it had met all the obligations contained in EU law when selling goods to the Republic of Ireland.
Any breach of that obligation would be followed up by the authorities in the UK and breaches would carry severe penalties as an effective disincentive to break that obligation, avoiding the need for border checks and safeguarding the integrity of the EU and UK’s internal markets.
The EU’s refusal to discuss replacing the Protocol, flies in the face of the existing agreement. It was always expected that the Protocol would be temporary. Article 13.8 of the Protocol makes it clear the protocol can be replaced. Furthermore, Article 16 of the Protocol states that unilateral action can take place if there are, ‘serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties or diversion of trade’.
All are now present in Northern Ireland.
As I have said, this isn’t just a matter for those living in Northern Ireland but for the whole UK.
The very idea that a part of the UK should find itself subject to the authority of another collection of states on things as important as taxes, without having a say in the decision, is terrible.
Yet that has become the case.
Whatever happened to no taxation without representation?
This is why I say it is time for the UK government to show some courage, take unilateral action and end the protocol.
If the EU really cared about the Good Friday Agreement, it would immediately engage in discussions to replace this temporary arrangement with a much better solution, such as Mutual Enforcement.
If not, we have to ask ourselves: whatever happened to no taxation without representation?