eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
Is the EU a 'malevolent' force? It certainly isn't a benign one, and it has a long and very far from noble track record of of pursuing its cast-in-stone dogmas at whatever the cost, and often in complete contempt for the troublesome matter of democracy. It evidently sees the UK not only as heretical, but as a future competitor with malign intentions, and has gone to some considerable trouble not only attempt to prevent brexit, but to infiltrate its own legal technocratic checks on the potential competitiveness of post-brexit UK. The WA, and the attendant NI Protocol, are its means of undertaking this sabotage, because they carry over the 'direct effect' of EU law into the post-brexit UK. That is why I refer to the WA as onorous.
The different systems of England and Scotland are totally irrelevant to this question, and I believe, with respect, that you have merely introduced it as a red herring.
The NI Protocol has (as previously discussed here at some length, if you'll forgive my patronising you back) the potential to directly contravene the text of the GFA.
The UK Internal Market has absolutely nothing to to with Johnson. It originates in the Acts of Union between England and Scotland of 1707, and of Great Britain and Ireland of 1800, later amended to Northern Ireland. It is a foundational block in the constitution, and in an uncanny mirror of our times states that there will be no Customs Duties imposed between the nations, that there will be a joint and uniform external customs policy, and that there will be no bounty (aka state aid) that advantages the traders of one nation over the others.
The WA and the NIP fly directly in the face of this, as the latter might impose the levy of duties between NI and the mainland, and vice versa. As such it will directly contravene the text of the GFA, which states in the Constitutional preamble that there will be 'no change in the status of Northern Ireland save with the consent of a majority of its people'.
I think that remaining in the SM and CU had much going for it, if only the spectre of the ECJ could have been kept out of the equation, or the UK had had a seat at the table. Norway manages this, and I regret that it wasn't pursued by May.
However, the border issue was created by an opportunist Irish government, which spotted it before the referendum had even been announced, and then in cahoots with the EU, what is perhaps unfortunately referred to as 'weaponised' it as part of a concerted attempt to overturn or negate the results of the referendum.
Johnson’s Internal Market and Taxation Bills are a damage limitation exercise on the more onerous aspects of the WA and NIP, though I'm not convinced that they would be sufficient. As it is he has apparently received sufficient assurances from the EU to allow him to remove the problem clauses from the bills. I guess we'll see. I note that this matter has been the subject of some vigorous debating in the HoC today.
Well, that as you say is another argument, or not.
