Boris Johnson has only himself to blame for the problems caused by the Northern Ireland protocol

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The UK government will seek to reopen the border protocol with Northern Ireland again when the transitional arrangement ends in September and, with it, a further thickening of the maritime border between Britain and Northern Ireland approximate.

The UK is considering three options, in ascending order of seriousness: threatening to activate Article 16, which allows the UK (or the EU) to suspend the deal; effectively trigger section 16; or tear up the protocol completely.

But the political problem for the UK government is that the current difficulties do not indicate that the protocol is malfunctioning, but that it is working as intended. To keep the border open on the island of Ireland, you have two options: a) continued regulatory alignment on goods and phytosanitary standards between the UK and the EU, which the Conservative Party has consistently rejected, or b) a thicker regulatory border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom. It is difficult to come to an alternative arrangement when you have already ruled out all available options: the fact that one of the solutions mentioned, according to the FT, is an honesty box type arrangement is a sign of this.

The other problem for the British government is that the EU27 does not want to reopen the protocol and the Biden administration either. But Boris Johnson needs both the EU and the US if the UK is to successfully host a climate conference in November and advance its foreign policy goals more broadly.

[see also:The Irish border question is unanswerable. The only viable option is to stop asking it]

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