Member

In all of this, as has been pointed out, there is nevertheless reason to be positive about one thing in these regulations: they concede the point that, even with a border that is as blindingly visible to all as the Irish Sea, checks and processes do not have to be conducted at that border but at a facility elsewhere. This obviously undermines the entire rationale for the protocol arrangements in the first place; these exist only because, as the noble Lord, Lord Bew, pointed out, we were told that anything else was impossible—a fever dream of crazed Brexiteers looking for unicorns in the negotiations. Instead, what the regulations before us demonstrate is the opposite: that the SPS border for goods moving from the Republic into Great Britain does not need to be a hard border. They sweep away the justification for having controls at the Irish Sea, rather than the land border, in the first place.