With just 8 weeks until the Brexit transition ends, Northern Ireland desperately needs answers from Boris Johnson's government

Britain's Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Michael Gove speaks with Clare Guinness (L), Chief Executive Officer of Warrenpoint Harbour on a visit to the border between Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland.

PAUL FAITH/AFP via Getty Images

• Northern Irish families and businesses desperately need details from Boris Johnson's UK government of how Brexit will impact them, writes Labour's Shadow Northern Ireland Secretary of State Louise Haigh.
• The Northern Ireland protocol — agreed by the UK and EU to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland — will come into effect in around eight weeks' time on January 1, 2021.
• Time is running out for businesses to prepare for new checks on goods moved between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.
• The National Audit Office this week warned that arrangements for the province were behind schedule.
• Failure by Johnson's government to help prepare Northern Ireland for its new status will lead to price rises and reduced choice for hard-pushed Northern Irish families, Haigh warned.
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In eight weeks' time the Brexit transition period will end and the Northern Ireland Protocol will come into force.

By now, anyone would expect the government to be in the final stages of preparation for the big changes to come. Instead, traders, businesses, and major supermarkets are being forced to get ready amidst a fog of uncertainty. Many of them are desperate to make this work, but concrete details simply have not materialized.

The Border Operating Model — the blueprint for trade — promised by Michael Gove in summer is nowhere to be seen.

The IT systems that will underpin the new checks are still not fully operational.

The border infrastructure will not be ready.

And last month, 40 food and drink manufacturers wrote to the Government warning this uncertainty may force them to pull out of the Northern Ireland market altogether. They have not had the basic decency of a reply.

Rather than working to deliver the certainty businesses crave, Ministers have instead insulted business claiming they have "their head in the sand," engaged in a needless war of words with the EU, and finally threatened to tear up parts of the Protocol altogether. 

That the thousands of businesses which power Northern Ireland still do not know the bare basics of how they will trade within the internal market of Great Britain — their largest market — in just eight week time is a profound failure of governance and in the middle of a public health crisis, deeply irresponsible.

But businesses in Northern Ireland simply do not have time for the blame game. They need solutions and they need them now.

One Export Health Certificate — the form you need to trade so called "agri-food" products — i.e eggs, meat, and milk can cost up to £100 and needs a vet to authorize. That could be on every consignment, on every load, every time. As the Chief Veterinary Officer for Northern Ireland said, checks on this scale would be "as close to impossible as you can get."

The Shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Louise Haigh during a television interview before meeting victims of the Northern Ireland Troubles at Wave Centre in Belfast, who have run a long-standing campaign for a pension for victims.

Liam McBurney/PA Images via Getty Images

The kind of trusted trader scheme business groups have called for, that would allow certain businesses to trade on the basis that their goods are not at risk of entering the Single Market, could make a big difference. It won't solve every problem, far from it, but it could be an important part of the puzzle, reducing the scope of costly checks and certificates on food products.

This depends on goodwill and compromise on both sides. It will require flexibility from the EU to recognise that retailers trading purely within the domestic market with Northern Ireland don't pose a risk and shouldn't suffer costly impediments. Without these mitigations and without a deal, retailers have warned they will face thousands of pounds of additional costs. Given the sheer volume of trade, this would have profound implications for Northern Ireland.

That's why we urgently need to see a deal reached between the UK and the EU that will reduce those barriers and costs. It would be a big, bold step that would hugely benefit the people of Northern Ireland.

There is no doubt the government's abject handling of negotiations has made this deal — which depends on trust — harder to secure. The posturing of ministers in the UK Internal Market Bill has already had an effect on supply chains in Northern Ireland even before the transition period has ended. And their failure to prepare has made it virtually impossible for Northern Ireland to get ready.

Yet at the heart of it, this isn't just about trade, but about whether or not families in Northern Ireland, with squeezed budgets and half of the discretionary income of Great Britain households, can continue to get the choice and affordability they so desperately need within the United Kingdom.

And that's why ultimately, what businesses and communities desperately need to see now more than anything, are solutions. With just weeks to go, time isn't just running out, for some it's already too late.

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