Why the ‘sausage war’ shows the Brexit divorce is about to get even messier

Sean O’Grady explains why this pork-based problem is just the latest in a string of issues that were entirely predictable when the treaty was signed, and remain incredibly difficult to resolve

Porkies: Johnson holding aloft a string of ‘Boris bangers’ during his party leadership bid in 2019 (AFP via Getty Images)

There are few things more intrinsically funny than a sausage, and the very mention of a banger can defuse even the most fraught of political arguments. When the sausage becomes a symbol and cause of political dispute, as now with the UK-EU “sausage war”, it tends to raise a smile. Indeed, many years ago the satirical Whitehall sitcom Yes, Minister had a whole episode devoted to the imposition of a new EU directive that would have meant that the British sausage was to compulsorily be renamed the “Emulsified High-Fat Offal Tube”, with hilarious consequences.

Jolly as all that may be, the “sausage war” is merely the latest symptom that Brexit isn’t working. As with so many of these arguments, it arises from the rushed UK-EU Withdrawal Agreement of October 2019, and in particular the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol. As was clear at the time, in order to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, Northern Ireland was left behind in the EU Single Market and Customs Union, as well as being inside the UK internal market – a complicated arrangement. It meant a trade “border” between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

That was all agreed and passed by the UK and European parliaments, and is international law. It contained procedures for an emergency suspension of the trade border, for the resolution of disputes, and for grace periods for all sides to get used to the new regime. Because sausages, like many other foodstuffs, products, livestock and plants, represent a potential risk to the EU Single Market if they do not match up to EU standards. Which means the EU has the right to check they comply with EU rules. This might be fine were it not so inconvenient, time-consuming and costly.

It has caused all manner of problems for Northern Ireland’s consumers, to the irritation of all who live there. The Democratic Unionist Party wants to scrap the protocol, and the ructions over it led to the resignation of Arlene Foster as party leader and her replacement by Edwin Potts. However nationalists and Sinn Fein do want to retain the protocol, so the sausage war is also being fought by proxy within Northern Ireland.

The British now propose a further unilateral extension of the grace period, postponing new checks on sausages, chicken nuggets, ham sandwiches and the like while these issues can be negotiated away. The EU is not happy with this. It has already instituted legal proceedings over previous unilateral changes, and is now threatening retaliatory action in unrelated areas, such as tariffs and quotas on British exports to the EU. The vice-president of the EU Commission, Maros Sefcovic, says the EU “will not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations”.

In turn, the British point to the EU’s unilateral ban on Covid vaccines going to Northern Ireland imposed earlier in the year, albeit briefly, as evidence of hypocrisy and a precedent for unilateral British action.

The British argument, made forcefully by David (Lord) Frost, the former chief negotiator and now minister for the relationship, is that the EU is being silly and excessively legalistic – indulging in “legal purism”. The implication is that the EU is implementing the rules in a most vexatious way as a form of spite and as a punishment for Brexit.

From this point of view, there is no realistic risk that a pack of Sainsbury’s pork sausages is going to be smuggled into Ireland from Northern Ireland, and even less of a risk of said sausages making their gruesome way across the EU. And even if they were to make that transcontinental odyssey, no Belgian or Romanian would be harmed by their consumption, at least inside the use-by date. This is because it is asserted that British standards of hygiene and animal standards are the same as the EU’s, and will remain high even if they diverge from the existing single market rules. The British propose that the EU accepts that Britain is an advanced nation capable of producing safe food, and that the EU also accept the principle of “equivalence” – different rules aimed at the same broad outcome.

The EU sees things differently. It regards the “integrity” of the single market as paramount, and distrusts what the British may do about standards and product rules in the future. For example – and purely theoretically – if the UK began to import genetically modified wheat and used that to make bread, biscuits and, indeed, sausages or sausage rolls, then that would be seen as intolerable (rightly or wrongly), so far as the peoples of Europe are concerned. In such a circumstance, British and EU standards couldn’t be equivalent, and the checks on sausages, and much else, would be essential to protect the health of EU consumers.

The EU also points out that all the consequences of the protocol were known and being argued about at the time it was negotiated, by Frost and Johnson, back in 2019, and the British are attempting to renegotiate an international treaty on the sly. The suggestion is that the deal was signed off just to get Brexit over the line, and “get Brexit done”, with the complacent assumption that any problems could be sorted out amicably later on. The basic British position seems to be that if everyone just stopped worrying about sausages and the like then the problem would go away.

Sadly, it is not going away. In fact, the disputes are getting more legalistic and acrimonious, and personal relationships have frayed. There is some suggestion that the problem lies with the recalcitrant and stubborn Frost, who replaced the more emollient Michael Gove in February. The rumour is that at the G7 summit, Chancellor Merkel, President Macron, Ursula von der Leyen and even Joe Biden will bypass Frost and lobby Johnson directly to break the deadlock – “divide and rule EU style”.

However, they may not fully realise that Frost is working entirely to Johnson’s remit, and that it is the prime minister who is pushing things to the legal limit and beyond. With such misunderstandings and lack of trust, this divorce is going to get even messier.