What next for the Northern Ireland protocol?

This is an audio recording of an IfG Live Event

It has been a rocky first six weeks for the Northern Ireland protocol, which came into force on 31 December last year.

Since the UK left the Brexit transition period, Northern Ireland has seen empty supermarket shelves, cancelled deliveries, and retailers temporarily pulling some products. Then came the UK’s vaccines row with the EU, and the EU’s threat to take unilateral action to disregard aspects of the protocol. While that decision was swiftly reversed after strong condemnation from politicians in Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and the UK, but it has been followed by increasingly vocal calls from Unionist parties to do away with the protocol entirely.

This event looked at how the protocol is operating, what solutions might be found to fix its early problems, and what opportunities the protocol presents for Northern Ireland. 

Speakers

• Aodhán Connolly, Director of the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium
• Professor Katy Hayward, Professor of Political Sociology at Queen’s University Belfast and Senior Fellow at UK in a Changing Europe
• Neale Richmond TD, Fine Gael spokesperson on European Affairs
• Simon Hoare MP, Chair of the House of Commons Northern Ireland Affairs Committee

The event was chaired by Jess Sargeant, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Government

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