The Graun is trying for balance, at least for the patient reader. The less patient will find leading points, and there is quite a bit of dog-whistle and evasion:
What has happened now?
The UK foreign secretary, Liz Truss, issued a strongly worded and lengthy broadside against the EU late on Tuesday night criticising proposals it made last October to relax checks on goods crossing from Great Britain into Northern Ireland.
She said the proposals “would worsen the current trading arrangements and lead to everyday items disappearing from shelves” and lead to “other unacceptable burdens on business”....
She said Lincolnshire sausages and other chilled meats would need a veterinary certificate to enter Northern Ireland, sending a parcel to Northern Ireland would require more than 50 fields of information for customs declarations and there “would be powers to search people’s bags for food, like ham sandwiches, on departure from the ferry to Northern Ireland”.
She also said pet owners would need to pay £280 for certificates and jabs for their dogs or cats “just to go on holiday in the UK”.
And finally that VAT reliefs such as the recent energy saver could not be applied in Northern Ireland, “despite posing no risk to the EU single market”.
The Graun offers only thin reassurance:
Haven’t we heard all this before?...Yes, most of it. Recall the row over the Great British banger?
What are we supposed to conclude here exactly? It will all be a storm in a teacup? What exactly was this 'row'? Then:
Truss also protested that composite foods such as “Thai green curry ready meals, New Zealand lamb and Brazilian pork” could disappear from the shelves if the protocol was applied in full.
The Graun's response:
Remember the row about chlorinated chicken coming into the UK from the US? The Thai green curry example raises the same issue for the EU and goes to the heart of the protocol checks. They were agreed to ensure that third country goods – whether it was unregulated meat from South America or the US or counterfeit goods from China – could not slip into Ireland or the single market via Northern Ireland.
The Graun seems to be arguing that 'Thai green curry' literally gets imported from Thailand, that meat produced under regulations different from EU ones is 'unregulated', and that it poses the same risk as counterfeit goods. The whole thing repeats the rather flimsy claim that NI will become an unregulated gateway for massive imports into the rest of Europe, of course.
Finally:
What does the EU say?
Last October the EU offered to scrap 80% of Northern Ireland food checks and 50% of customs checks in four discussion papers it called “far-reaching” and a “new model” for the protocol.
It also repeatedly offered a deal to eliminate food checks if the UK agreed to maintain equivalent food standards as the EU. This was rejected in the overall trade deal as it could have raised a barrier in trade deals with the US and other countries with different food standards. But the EU offered the UK a bespoke deal for Northern Ireland that would have resulted in physical checks on food scrapped under an equivalence deal which would be reviewed in the event of a US trade deal. [I really don't understand that last sentence]
How did the UK react?
The then Brexit secretary, Lord Frost, claimed the “far-reaching” proposals were nothing of the sort – arguing the 50% reduction in customs checks was merely a reduction in 50% of the number of boxes vendors had to check when sending goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
He also demanded the role of the European court of justice as the arbiter in any potential disputes was changed.
The last point seems quite important really -- odd it has been left until last.
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