Below is the text from an article in the DT by Lord Trimble who could be said to know a bit about the GFA, as he won the Nobel Prize for it.
The Prime Minister’s proposals to replace the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (the ‘backstop'), published this week, have received a cool and sceptical reception in Brussels and have been dismissed by Dublin. They are seen by both as failing to meet the mark. However, this may not be so much a result of the content of the UK’s proposals as with the negotiating position of the EU.
As we set out for Policy Exchange, there are four problems with this position which if recognised and addressed by all parties would make a deal far more achievable; in short, the Protocol/backstop does not protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement but rather damages it; the EU has taken authority for areas of the negotiations where it either does not have the primary authority or lacks authority; the EU has set objectives for the UK proposals that the current Protocol does not meet and it has changed — and appears to be still changing — those objectives.
It has become increasingly clear that far from ‘protect[ing] the Good Friday Agreement in all its dimensions’ (Article 1.3) the Protocol actually wrecks the Good Friday Agreement. The Unionists in Northern Ireland have been consistent in this view since publication of the Withdrawal Agreement in November 2018.
The Protocol, if it was activated, would alter the governance of Northern Ireland, without consent, reduce the powers of the devolved administration, override the checks and balances on North-South co-operation which were key to getting agreement in 1998, alter the status of Northern Ireland as well as undermine democracy there. In short, the constitutional settlement of 1998 would be overturned and the principles that underpin its workings overridden.
This has major implications for the current negotiations. The onus has been on the UK to come up with alternatives to the Protocol, alternatives that are to provide a workable legal solution to the problem of Brexit as posed by the amended negotiating guidelines and directives of the EU. However, the Protocol is not, in the language of the Commission, a ‘legally operational solution’ because it fails to protect the Good Friday Agreement. The Commission has created a playing field that is not level. The UK cannot be held to a standard that the current Withdrawal Agreement fails to reach.
We need a new level-playing field for the negotiations that prioritises respect not only for the legal order of the EU but of the international treaty between the UK and Ireland. The current UK proposals on amending the Withdrawal Agreement, as outlined by Boris Johnson in his letter to Jean-Claude Juncker last week, meet these requirements in full.
Concerns on the border would be more than addressed by increased British-Irish co-operation and a joint determination to make these proposals work using the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. Together, the British and Irish are well placed to maximise the potential benefits of the ‘imaginative and flexible solutions’ the EU negotiators have always realised would be necessary to secure the Single Market whilst avoiding a hard border. It would meet all the legally required criteria, and fulfil the aims of Article 50, whilst respecting key principles such as subsidiarity and proportionality.
Lord Trimble, a former First Minister of Northern Ireland, won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in securing the 1998 Belfast Agreement. Roderick Crawford works in conflict resolution.