eternumviti
Insufficient privileges to reply.
And I think you're clutching at straws, in this case to paint the EU as a malevolent force undermining the integrity of the UK. Post devolution, the UK includes different legal systems. You could say there is a legal border between Scotland and England, and the EU has had nothing to do with it. You complain the EU has instrumentalized the GFA, and then try to intrumentalize the GFA to say that the Northern Ireland Protocol undermines it (it does not, as previously discussed here). The UK Single Market is BoJo's last minute creation (post Brexit) to try to roll back devolution and slow down Scottish autonomy.
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'.
The border issue was created by the UK government's unilateral (and in my view daft) decision to leave the CU and SM, and this in turn threatened key parts of the GFA. The EU has bent over backwards to accommodate the UK and Ireland on the issue: it has negotiated two different methods of reconciling Brexit with the need to maintain free circulation between NI and the Republic, as required by the shifting sands of UK politics. The fundamental problem all along has been that the UK has been unable to articulate a coherent and realistic set of objectives and to stick to them. Maybe the effect of 3 different PMs and 3 GEs in 5 years: that's more than Italy has had.
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.
Well, many believe all sorts of strange things. I remember the derision from Brexiters here when it was suggested many years ago that Brexit could have the negative effect of putting a border down the Irish Sea. No PM would ever entertain such a heretic thought, we were confidently assured. The NI Protocol is a damage limitation exercise, and the negotiators have made the best of it.
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.
Leaving aside UK sovereignty for a second, the real threat to UK integrity is Brexit and the demons and internal dynamics of the Conservative Party.
Well, that as you say is another argument, or not.