Brexit Impact on Northern Ireland

Mmm. I'm not so sure.

Fact of the matter is that, if the UK were to invoke Art 16 instead of proceeding with the NIP Bill, this would be a positive as far as the EU is concerned. (A) It's not illegal. (B) It comes with requirement for intensive negotiations and a commitment to finding a solution. (C) The solution is not the replacement of the NI Protocol, but making it work. From where we are now, this would be confidence-building.

This could break a logjam. Fairly clear that the new PM has no great interest in NI, but won't want to have a trade war with EU over it. UK's current course, if persisted in, leads to a trade war; he doesn't want that. Current course can very easily be identified with Liz Truss; these are opportune times for taking anything associated with Liz Truss out into the desert, burying in in a deep mineshaft, filling in the shaft and agreeing never to speak of it again. Problem is that Rishi doesn't have any replacement strategy to address the issue; he's not sufficiently interested in NI to have come up with one, or sufficiently knowledgeable about NI to be capable of coming up with one.

So, a prize for the clever boy or girl who can come up with an NI strategy to replace the Lets Violate Our Treaty Obligations And Put The Kibosh On Our Reputation For Good! Bill. Doug may be competing for that prize. Hardliners can't really object since they have been calling for the invocation of Art 16 pretty much from day 1. UK government hasn't done it because it won't achieve the aim of displacing the protocol, and it would require them to engage with the EU, start talking and stop posturing. But Rishi might be open to being persuaded that now is quite a good time to stop posturing and start talking, lance the boil and get on with the project he's really interested in of turning GB into a libertarian playground.

Yes, he can decide to start talking at any time. (In fact there are talks under way right now.) The point about invoking Art 16 is that the UK would then be committed to talking, and also committed to the object or purpose of the talks, which is the limitation or abolition of the emergency measures taken by the UK. The UK would also be committed to justifying their actions, and their objectives, by reference to "serious economic, societal or environmental difficulties that are liable to persist" by reason of the Protocol; they couldn't justify emergency measures, or a desire to replace the protocol, simply on the grounds that they had changed their minds about what they signed up to. The whole discourse would become much more limited and focussed.

I'm not saying that this is the plan, by any means, but if Sunak did want to substantially climb down from the rather absurd position the UK has talked itself into, Art 16 might provide a framework for doing so. And as Brexiter headbangers have been demanding the invocation of Art 16 pretty much since the get-go it would be hard for them to criticise it now.

I probably am trying to bang a square peg into a round hole, I agree.

But bear with me. Whatever about May, the reason Johnson and Truss didn't invoke Art 16 had nothing to do with negative effects on diplomatic relations; the steps they did take showed they cared bugger all about that. I think the reason they didn't invoke it was because, far from being the get-out-of-jail free card that Brexiter headbangers believed, it simply wasn't capable of producing the outcome that they wanted; it would lock them into a process whose end-point was very much not where they wanted to go.

I'll say two things about invoking Art 16:

1. If the UK ever does invoke it, it will be because either (a) the UK government is in the hands of Brexiter headbangers or of people who have bought into Brexiter headbanger delusions, or (b) the UK government has changed its views about the outcome it wants.
2. Invoking Art 16 would be less offensive and inflammatory than what the UK is currently doing — the NIP Bill, which is blatantly and admittedly illegal. Art 16 is right there in the treaty; it's a process to which the EU has agreed for resolving issues that arise from the implementation of the protocol. If the UK government were to invoke it in good faith, that would certainly be a lot better, from the EU's point of view, than what they are doing now.

Obviously the "in good faith" bit is not something anyone would take for granted, given the record of perfidy to date. But the only way the current mess gets unmessed is if the UK changes course in some significant way. Invoking Art 16 isn't in itself the necessary change of course, but if the UK were minded to change course then invoking Art 16 would provide a mechanism for doing this which might enable them to save some face (which the EU is generally happy to enable its negotiating counterparties to do) and also give them some temporary cover from the aforementioned brexiter headbangers.