Johnson’s Brexit Plan Could Be Scuppered by This Political Zombie

(Bloomberg) --

The “Stormont lock” is fast becoming one of the biggest threats to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s increasingly hard-to-grasp Brexit deal.

The British proposal would give the unionist side of Northern Ireland’s sectarian divide an effective veto over whether to stay in Europe’s single market for goods. It’s proved unacceptable to the government south of the border. Here is why the idea is so controversial.

1. What is Stormont?

It is Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly, effectively a devolved parliament for the region. Created after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 ended decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles, it returned political decision-making to Belfast for the first time since the British imposed direct rule in 1972. Unlike its unionist-dominated predecessor, the assembly requires the consent of both the mostly Protestant parties which want Northern Ireland to remain part of the U.K. and mainly Catholic parties which want the region to become part of the Irish Republic to meet. But it has been suspended since 2017 after the nationalist Sinn Fein grouping, the second-biggest after the Democratic Unionist Party, pulled its support amid a row tied to a renewable energy scandal. Despite intermittent talks since, the assembly is still some way from returning.

2. Why does it matter for Brexit?

Under Johnson’s latest proposals, Northern Ireland would keep the same rules as the European Union for all goods after Brexit. In theory, this would help to prevent the return of border infrastructure on the frontier with the Republic of Ireland, one of the EU’s key requirements of any Brexit deal. However, this so-called rule alignment would depend on the consent of Northern Ireland’s assembly and executive: They would have to back it before the end of 2020, and every four years after that.

3. Why does this worry Ireland?

Under its current rules, just a third of the assembly’s 90 members can block a measure they don’t like using a tool known as a petition of concern. This amounts to an “open veto to be played like a joker at any time,” according to Mark Durkan, a former member of the assembly. The fear in Dublin is that the DUP could use this mechanism to block a vote on rule alignment with the EU. In the most recent election, in 2017, the DUP took 28 seats -- but with the help of other unionists it could get the 30 votes required.

4. What would happen if the DUP exercised that veto?

It could put the integrity of the EU’s single market in jeopardy. Northern Ireland could end up with standards for products like food that differ from those in the south, something that would almost certainly lead the EU to introduce checks at or close to the border to ensure sub-standard goods don’t make their way into the bloc via the Irish frontier.

5. But what happens if Stormont doesn’t form in time?

It’s not yet clear. Indeed, giving Stormont a veto could actually hinder efforts to restart the assembly because other parties won’t want to hand the DUP a veto, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney warned on Thursday. And to drive his point home, Coveney said Ireland couldn’t possibly accept a situation where a minority could frustrate the majority’s wishes in the region.

So the U.K. looks to be on a collision course with Ireland and the EU on the issue. The problem for Johnson is that he needs the support of the DUP’s Members of Parliament to get his deal through Westminster. Either Brussels or the DUP will have to give -- and neither shows any sign of doing so.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter Flanagan in Dublin at pflanagan23@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ambereen Choudhury at achoudhury@bloomberg.net, Edward Evans, Flavia Krause-Jackson

©2019 Bloomberg L.P.