Threatening to tear up a treaty is a poor way to negotiate

Editorial: Boris Johnson said he would ‘not hesitate’ to suspend the Ireland protocol if the European Union insists on applying it strictly

Boris Johnson in talks with Ursula von der Leyen at the G7 (AFP/Getty)

In any negotiation, it is important to hold the high moral ground. Unfortunately for the people and businesses of Northern Ireland, Boris Johnson abandoned that territory some time ago and is having difficulty retaking it.

It was Mr Johnson who agreed both the Ireland protocol of the withdrawal agreement and the trade treaty that finally put it into effect on 1 January this year. Now he appears to be complaining, in effect, that the European Union expects him to abide by the small print.

He accuses the EU of taking a “theologically draconian” approach, while the EU is able to sound innocently reasonable in merely asking that Mr Johnson keep his side of the bargain.

It does not help that the UK government announced in parliament last year its intention to break international law “in a limited and specific way”. That was regarding a provision of the withdrawal agreement that the EU in the end conceded was unnecessary, but it did nothing for the UK’s reputation as an upholder of the rules-based international order.

Mr Johnson was on the defensive at the G7 summit in Cornwall. Thanks to a quirk of history, five of the nine representatives at the G7 represent the EU: the leaders of Germany, France and Italy, plus the president of the EU Council (Charles Michel) and the president of the European Commission (Ursula von der Leyen).

Although Mr Johnson’s spokesperson denied that he felt “ganged up on”, he may have felt the need to state his case more forcefully than he otherwise would.

Indeed, Mr Johnson has some good arguments on his side. The protocol specifically allows for negotiation over the implementation of the rules, and implies a test of reasonableness. No one seriously believes that sausage rolls destined for supermarkets in Northern Ireland pose a threat to the EU single market, even if a few of them did end up in the republic.

As the UK and EU diverge in future, problems may emerge, but it does seem that the EU is taking an inflexible attitude in the here and now.

As the prime minister repeatedly pointed out to his many interlocutors, the protocol was intended, given that the UK has left the EU, to avoid checkpoints on the border between Northern Ireland and the republic. He did not spell it out, but the only other options, if the protocol cannot be made to work, are to cancel Brexit (as Mr Johnson interprets it) or to impose a hard border on the island of Ireland.

It is unfortunate that Mr Johnson has weakened his negotiating authority so much that he is reduced to complaining that the EU leaders “misunderstand” the UK’s integrity as a “single country”, saying: “I just need to get that into their heads.”

Nor does it help to recover any of that authority to threaten to suspend the protocol. Of course, the protocol itself allows for its temporary suspension under Article 16, for pressing social reasons, which may apply in this case. But that sounds like a churlish threat to walk away – and it is no use pointing out that Ms Von der Leyen threatened to invoke Article 16 herself over vaccines: that was a bad mistake that neither side should want to repeat.

As we have observed many times, Brexit is not done, and will never be “done”. There will be negotiations on every aspect of EU-UK trade for the foreseeable future. These negotiations will depend on trust and respect on both sides.

Mr Johnson should be trying to build that trust; at the moment he seems to be throwing it away.