The PM’s greatest ‘untruth’ was about the Northern Irish border – the honest route now is to let voters choose where it should be
It was only Achilles’ heel that was vulnerable, but it still killed him. The Northern Ireland border was Boris Johnson’s greatest Brexit “untruth”. He told the taoiseach there would be no border in Ireland. He told Northern Ireland’s unionists there would be none in the Irish Sea. He told everyone he would leave Europe’s customs union. Johnson was, as the saying goes, “averse to the despotism of facts”.
The latest car crash is Johnson’s decision to abrogate yet again the Northern Ireland protocol with the EU. He is refusing to regulate a customs border in Belfast. Since this implies breaching EU customs control, Brussels is angry and is threatening legal action “very soon”. We have previously seen problems with some food supplies getting to Northern Ireland as a result of the end of the initial Brexit transition period at the start of the year. Trade is not about chauvinist rhetoric but about people’s lives.
