European Union and World Trade Organization checks would be mandatory on both sides of the Irish border in the event of no-deal Brexit, one of the world’s leading experts on customs has said.
Michael Lux, a former head of customs legislation and procedures at the European commission, said the UK would have to impose customs checks and tariffs on the northern side of the border, despite claims to the contrary by Brexiters.
Under WTO rules, the UK could opt for zero tariffs, but it would be obliged to offer this free-trade deal to every other country. This would mean cheap food and dairy products, which currently attract high tariffs, from countries such as Brazil or New Zealand, and might also lead to chlorinated chicken from the US ending up on British supermarket shelves.
“It would kill UK farming,” said Lux. He also said Brexiters who claim the UK won’t impose checks in Northern Ireland are naive.
“If you do not apply tariffs, you would be in breach of WTO rules. One of the rules – the most-favoured nation, article 3 – is that if you apply a lower duty to one nation, you have to apply it to all members, and if the UK did that in Northern Ireland it would have to apply that right across the UK,” he said.
“I am not sure the UK would want to do this, as it would lose a lot of income and would disadvantage its own businesses.”
David Phinnemore, a professor of European politics at Queen’s University Belfast, said the Brexiter argument that there could be a free-for-all on the northern side of the border as a means of ensuring an open border after Brexit was disingenuous. “This argument, that the UK can simply forgo border controls, fails to factor in what that means for any country they subsequently want to make a deal with,” he said.
If goods were let into Northern Ireland from the republic on a preferential basis, countries from France to China would complain, said Phinnemore.
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