For Northern Ireland, Brexit means red tape and subsidies
The province’s businesses and consumers must either pay higher prices, or receive government handouts in perpetuity
AMONG THE many claims made for Brexit was that leaving the European Union would allow Britain to slash red tape and free private industry to flourish. Nowhere does that promise ring more hollow than in Northern Ireland. When the United Kingdom left the EU, it promised that the province would remain to all intents and purposes within the trade bloc, in order to keep the border with the Republic of Ireland near-invisible. The aim was to avoid disrupting Northern Ireland’s fragile peace process by re-inscribing the island’s partition, thus inflaming nationalist sentiment. But the result has been to create a fresh blizzard of red tape and large new costs for traders.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline “Tied up in knots”
Britain September 4th 2021
- Britain’s economic recovery from the pandemic is far from smooth
- For Northern Ireland, Brexit means red tape and subsidies
- The coming Brexit row over data
- School closures have caused damage that extra lessons cannot fix
- Neither Nicola Sturgeon nor the SNP will be easy to dislodge
- The extraordinary power of the NHS brand
- Britain’s foreign secretary isn’t up to the job
From the September 4th 2021 edition
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