EU’s hallucinatory Northern Ireland episode leaves chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster teetering on moral high ground
After years of division, who would have guessed that it would take the European commission to unite the entire House of Commons – not to mention the whole of Ireland – over Europe? Last Friday, the EU had what can only be described as a hallucinatory episode when it imagined that vaccine manufacturers were planning to start a major drug racketeering scam by smuggling their jabs across the border from the Republic into Northern Ireland and promptly invoked article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol. If only for a short while, as within hours that decision had been rescinded.
“Trust has been eroded,” said Michael Gove, in answer to an urgent question from the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, Louise Haigh. It’s quite something when the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has the moral high ground on matters of trust, but it was a measure of just how extreme the EU’s actions had been that no one thought to challenge Gove on his own track record of duplicity. Rather there was a general agreement from MPs of all parties that the EU had been totally out of order to unilaterally invoke article 16 before all other options had been explored.
