My guest is Catherine Barnard.

Catherine Barnard.

Catherine Barnard is Professor of EU Law at Trinity College, Cambridge, and Deputy Director of UK Interchanging Europe.

Welcome to the podcast, Catherine.

Well, thank you for inviting me.

Right, we're going to talk about the long-anticipated Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, because it's very topical.

But before that, I'd like us to talk about the Northern

Iron Protocol itself, and maybe for my benefit, and maybe the benefit of some of the

listeners, explain what is, in a few words, what is this Northern Ireland protocol, and why does

it exist? So the principal reason exists is to preserve the Good Friday Agreement. That was

the agreement concluded in 1998, which essentially secured peace in Northern Ireland.

And the genius of the Good Friday Agreement was that the perception was it says no north-south border,

i.e. no border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and the South.

And this was much easier to do when both the UK and Ireland were in the EU single market and customs union.

Once the UK voted to leave the EU, this raised a question how to manage the issue of the border.

Because of course Northern Ireland shares a border with an EU member state.

Now the Good Friday Agreement says no north-south border. So then the question is where do you

put the border? And the only real alternative was what's called the East-West border, i.e. between

G.B and Northern Ireland. So East-West, a border, a metaphorical border going down the Irish

sea. That's the only way you could square the circle of having G.B. leaving the single market

and the customs union, but also about preserving Northern Ireland special status by making sure there was no border going between

the north and the south. Well it seems to be that ever since the protocol has been in operation

...