Irish Examiner view: Brexit red tape was never as bad in EU

More bureaucracy outside EU

European Union chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier, right, and the British Prime Minister's Europe adviser David Frost arrive for Brexit trade talks in Brussels, last August Picture: Yves Herman, Pool Photo via AP

Remarks by David Frost, the UK’s lead negotiator on the Northern Ireland protocol, that his priority is to protect the Good Friday Agreement, are welcome — particularly in light of the insistence by the DUP that the protocol is scrapped.

Ever since the end of the EU transition period, unionists and businesses have complained that the implementation of the protocol has led to bureaucratic paperwork and red tape on trade, making it difficult for some businesses in the North.

What did they expect? For years, the British people were fed lies and disinformation about so-called Brussels red tape — much of it by Boris Johnson, including in his years as a journalist. He built a journalistic career on what his hero, Winston Churchill, called “terminological inexactitude”. Everything from plans to introduce same-size “eurocoffins”, establish a “banana police force” to regulate the shape of the fruit, and ban prawn cocktail crisps were invented by him to highlight supposed Brussels regulations.

In fact, as Brexit has already shown, there are fewer regulations to contend with inside the EU than outside it.