Michael Gove has just made no deal much easier

While talks between Boris Johnson and Ursula von der Leyen remain deadlocked over the level playing field, a separate negotiation between Michael Gove and EU Commission Vice President Maroš Šefčovič over Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit status has been moving at pace and achieving breakthroughs. 

Today, the pair agreed a trusted trader scheme that would exempt 98 per cent of goods flowing between Great Britain and Northern Ireland from tariffs under any eventuality, including a no deal Brexit. Tariffs on the remaining two per cent of goods would likely be refunded.

This follows an agreement yesterday to abandon exit summary declarations for trade between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, something Northern Ireland businesses have been desperately calling for, a temporary (but widely expected to be extended) exemption for agri-food products from requiring export health certificates, and a commitment by the United Kingdom to abide by the Northern Ireland Protocol in full. 

In two days, the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol went from complete paralysis, with Britain threatening to break international treaty obligations, to being solved. It is understandable, then, that some believe this is a good omen for the wider UK-EU trade talks; Gove and Šefčovič have shown that seemingly intractable problems can quickly be solved with technical solutions. 

But it would nevertheless be a stretch to conclude this means a breakthrough between Johnson and Von der Leyen is imminent. Indeed, the developments suggest the precise opposite; Gove has broken the link between the progress of the talks and the future of Northern Ireland, making a no deal much easier to sell to both the incoming US administration and Conservative Unionists. 

With Northern Ireland’s position secured, leaving without a trade deal would no longer risk a permanent rupture with the Biden team, which has only ever intervened in the talks to stress the importance of the Good Friday Agreement. Similarly, with the prospect of violence between Northern Irish communities averted, the volume of any short-term destabilisation of the Union has been significantly reduced.  

If you were a cabinet minister charged with laying the groundwork for a no-deal Brexit, you’d probably do what Michael Gove has just done.