Irwin Armstrong, a former chairman of Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party in Northern Ireland, has a simple message for the British Prime Minister when it comes to the province’s unique post-Brexit trade rules: Do not ruin a good thing.
he founder of rapid test diagnostics manufacturer CIGA Healthcare in Ballymena, who campaigned for Britain to leave the EU six years ago, described the Northern Ireland protocol as a game changer for manufacturing companies like his.
According to the protocol, Northern Ireland remained effective in the EU’s internal market for goods, as the rest of the UK left last year.
Since then, CIGA has gained business from UK exporters tied up in paperwork, expanded into new EU markets and doubled sales with the Republic.
“My message to Boris Johnson about the protocol is ‘sort out what needs to be sorted out and leave the rest out,'” Mr Armstrong said, calling the arrangements “a win-win-win situation”.
However, the protocol is far from universally popular.
The perception that, by placing an effective border in the Irish Sea, the protocol erodes Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom, has provoked anger among many pro-British trade unionists – which Britain says also undermines the 1998 peace treaty.
Mr Johnson has vowed to do away with large parts of the protocol within months if he cannot persuade the EU to remove controls on goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Northern Ireland business groups have urged London not to act unilaterally, for fear that a trade war with the EU would take away the new-found competitive advantages that firms such as Mr. Armstrong’s enjoy. They want both sides to agree rather to ease the controls affecting other more consumer-oriented firms.
Preliminary protocol it took Lynas Foodservice, a major food supplier in Northern Ireland, seven days to order a product such as mozzarella cheese from its regular UK supplier. It can now take up to 14 days and requires eight different pieces of paperwork.
Longer lead times mean the Coleraine-based wholesaler will need more working capital – £ 11 million (€ 12.75 million) compared to £ 10 million (€ 11.6 million) previously. With UK suppliers also asking more per pallet for the hassle at their end, costs are passed on to retailers.
Lynas has stopped trading with 13 of its 200 UK suppliers, and is acquiring more goods from the south and sending others through Dublin to avoid some of the bureaucratic barriers to trade.
“I’m right in a business of 650 staff members to add to that cost and work with our customers, but I think for a lot of smaller businesses it was definitely more difficult,” said managing director Andrew Lynas.
Recent data showing that Northern Ireland, along with London, is the only region in the UK where economic growth has exceeded pre-pandemic levels, has led to some proposals for a protocol-driven economic refusal.
Ulster Bank’s chief economist for Northern Ireland, Richard Ramsey, said it was not so simple as the economy in the Covid-19 pandemic was in a weaker state than the rest of the UK and benefited excessively from record government spending, with one in four people working in the civil service.
“The protocol is presented as almost binary, it is either extremely good or it is terrible and needs to be done away with,” Mr Ramsey said.
“The reality is there are good parts and there are a lot of gray areas that still need to be ironed out.”
For now, it has created a two-speed economy, he said, with sectors such as food manufacturing and pharmaceuticals booming at a time when economic surveys for May suggest the cost-of-living crisis is hitting Northern Ireland harder than most UK regions.
In the small town of Maghera, Michael McGrath, owner of Crushing Screening Parts (CSP), said the “good parts” of the protocol were directly responsible for a 32pc year-on-year jump in revenue. He plans to add his staff of eight.
Mr McGrath said he could deliver a share to Poland and Germany by the next morning, while it could take a competing UK supplier at least two to three days. As a result, the ratio of CSP sales going to the EU has more than tripled to 33pc.
For Mr McGrath, the solution to the protocol mystery lies in the famous words of Bill Clinton 30 years ago: It’s the economy, stupid.
“It’s all about the economy,” he said. “The economy can do really well if the protocol is implemented correctly and at a level that we can all live with.”