Although the problems created by Brexit have not been in the spotlight for months, this does not mean that all the effects derived from the departure of the United Kingdom from the EU have ended. And this week, with a new deadline just around the corner, a new political battle between London and Brussels rocks Northern Ireland. The British press has dubbed it the “Sausage War”, and even US President Joe Biden has issued warnings to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on the subject.
The new crisis is caused by the controversial chapter of the Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland, the so-called “protocol”. This text took years to write and was about to sink the negotiations several times, since it implies: Northern Ireland has to comply with the laws of the European Common Market so that its products can be sold in the rest of the Twenty-seven without having to be subjected to a prior customs inspection at the border between the two Irelands, a bloody territory since the partition of the island a century ago, and whose resurrection could revive the civil war between the IRA terrorist group and the unionist paramilitaries that left thousands dead in the islands during the 20th century.
Six months to decide what to do with the meat
One of the clauses prohibits the sale of British refrigerated meat foods in Irish territory, with a grace period of six months that will expire this coming day 30. The idea is that in these months, either the United Kingdom and the EU would negotiate a stable agreement to unify the criteria applied on both sides for this type of food, which would make a ban unnecessary, or Northern Irish butcher shops would have time to look for other suppliers in the EU.
The reality has been very different: many companies have avoided looking for new suppliers, given the promises of the Johnson Government that nothing would change, while London has refused to negotiate a permanent agreement with Brussels, insisting that they will not give up their sovereignty to put its own food regulations, even if that means export restrictions to the EU. And the focus has been on one of the losers: the traditional Northern Irish breakfast. If nothing changes, the British sausages that are usually eaten in the morning in Belfast or Derry will become illegal. And the citizens of the province will have to choose between eating Irish sausages – a betrayal for the unionists – or eating buttered toast with their morning tea or coffee, as if they were continental. Some options that have aroused fury among the conservative parties and the British press.
Chilled British sausages are a threat to the peace process according to the EU, Alliance, Sinn Fein and the President of the United States.
The farcical Protocol needs to go and go now.
— Sammy Wilson MP (@eastantrimmp) Unionist MP Sammy Wilson says “Apparently chilled British sausages are a threat to the peace process, according to the EU, the Alliance, Sinn Féin and the US President. The farce protocol must be removed.”
For Johnson’s ‘Tories’ and the Northern Irish unionists, the solution is to extend the grace period indefinitely or, better yet, repeal the protocol altogether. Many MPs and commentators on the Conservative side insist that signing and voting in favor of the Brexit deal was a mistake and a capitulation to Brussels, and that, as requested by Northern Ireland’s main unionist party, the DUP.
The view from the outside is very different. The European Commissioner Maros Sefcovic, in charge of the Brexit negotiations, recalls that London signed the text, and Parliament ratified it with the vote in favor of all the ‘Tory’ deputies, knowing perfectly well its content, who negotiated in person Johnson and his then Irish counterpart, Leo Varadkar, currently the country’s deputy prime minister. Even so, they are willing to negotiate with the United Kingdom using the mechanisms created in the Brexit agreement itself, but they demand “good faith” from the British side, after it was signed just a year ago.
But Biden has also joined the issue, on his first official trip to Europe for the G-7 summit. The US president, from an Irish family, has warned Johnson that he is “inflaming” tensions with Ireland, The Times revealed on Thursday. The US government, according to this leak, would have sent a very clear message to London that this conflict must end, and that Johnson has to accept a negotiated solution with the EU, even if that means “unpopular compromises”, if he wants to have options to negotiate a commercial agreement with the North American country.
To this crisis has been added the one that Northern Irish unionism has been experiencing since the beginning of Brexit, and which has culminated in the departure of the leaders of its two largest parties, including the former Prime Minister of the province, Arlene Foster. The polls indicate that the unionists would fall in new elections -the current legislature ends next May-, that the pro-Irish Sinn Féin would be the largest force for the first time in history (and, by law, would take the presidency of the new provincial government) and that the DUP could even come third, also surpassed by the Liberals, who have no opinion on which country Northern Ireland should belong to.
The fall of unionism is due, in part, to the rejection of Brexit and sheer population growth: Protestants are becoming a smaller proportion of the population, and many young people who would previously declare themselves unionists by tradition are now supporting parties that are not wet in the matter, like the liberals or the greens. But the sense of abandonment and betrayal they feel from London has sparked nights of protests and injuries in recent months, with threats from some of the paramilitary gangs to rip up the Good Friday Peace Agreement that ended the civil war. A tension that can worsen every day that passes without the unionists being able to eat English sausages for breakfast.
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