When Boris Johnson replaced May last July as prime minister, he pledged to review the Brexit deal. Last week, he agreed with EU heads of state and government to withdraw the backstop and replace it with a revised protocol for Northern Ireland4, which will come into force at the end of the transition period (currently scheduled for 31 December 2020). Northern Ireland will remain on UK customs territory and VAT territory, but will be in line with EU rules in these areas. It will also remain largely in line with EU product rules. Four years after the end of the transition, the Northern Ireland Assembly will vote on the continuation of these agreements.5 With the exception of the approval mechanism, the protocol is similar to the one originally proposed by the EU and rejected by Theresa May only in Northern Ireland. The overall result of these problems was to undermine trade unionists` confidence in the agreement exploited by the anti-DUP agreement, which eventually overtook the pro-agreement Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) in the 2003 general elections. UUP had already resigned from the executive in 2002 following the Stormontgate scandal, in which three men were indicted for intelligence gathering. These charges were eventually dropped in 2005 because persecution was not “in the public interest.” Immediately afterwards, one of Sinn Féin`s members, Denis Donaldson, was unmasked as a British agent. Paragraph 3 of the second part (Northern Ireland`s relations with the Republic of Ireland) states that the North-South Council of Ministers “will meet appropriately to examine institutional or cross-sector issues (including those relating to the EU) and resolve disputes.” Paragraph 17 states that the North-South Council of Ministers “must examine the dimension of the European Union on relevant issues, including the implementation of EU policies and programmes and proposals to be discussed within the EU framework. Measures to ensure that the Council`s positions are taken into account and properly represented at relevant UNION meetings.” The appendix of the second part states that the areas of North-South cooperation and implementation may include `relevant EU programmes such as the SPPR, Interreg, Leader II and their successors`. 173.Several witnesses suggested that the joint accession of the United Kingdom and Ireland to the EU also helped to ease EU tensions in Northern Ireland and expressed concern that Brexit would have a destabilizing effect. Colum Eastwood, President of the SDLP, told us: 214.On the parliamentary side, Robin Walker shared his experience as a former member of the Anglo-Irish Parliamentary Assembly (BIPA). The BIPA was established in 1990 as an Anglo-Irish inter-parliamentary body, as a link between the Irish and British parliaments.
In 2001 membership was opened for the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, the Assembly of Northern Ireland, the High Court of Tynwald and the States of Guernsey and Jersey. Walker recalled the “complete change in attitudes in the time the bipa met. We have to build on that. 289 We note that Brexit has been the main item on the agenda of the last two plenary sessions of the BIPA and that its committees are investigating the impact of Brexit on Anglo-Irish relations.290 167.The Belfast/Good Friday Agreement considers the co-guarantors to be the two EU member states. We take note of the case on appeal to the Supreme Court and argue that Brexit is contrary to the Belfast and Good Friday agreement.