Resumen de The Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland: Protecting the EU’s Internal Market at the Expense of the UK’s

Stephen Weatherill

• The Protocol, which is designed to keep the border between Ireland and Northern Ireland “soft” or invisible, offers a story of intellectual intrigue and dismal duplicity. Its intellectual value lies in the confirmation that the EU is, contrary to its rhetoric, prepared to insist on commitment to some but not all of its economic freedoms in particular, and its internal market acquis in general, as the price for keeping one of its external borders unguarded. The consequence, however, is that an as yet imprecisely defined border is required between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, which harms the UK’s own internal market. The duplicity which generated this damaging outcome is emblematic of the dishonesty at the heart of the entire Brexit campaign, the full implications of which are yet to emerge.