Newton Emerson: Unionists have no choice but to make the Irish Sea border work

I am afraid there is no question the media is disappointed with the lack of drama, so far, around the Brexit sea border.

In most cases this merely reflects the professional irritation of spending four years studying the technicalities of trade, perhaps the driest subject in international politics, only for the gripping finale to be cancelled.

In other cases, some sourness is evident as political hopes and theories fade.

A Belfast Telegraph editorial compared the “non-event” to the Millennium bug, when “grave predictions ... proved unfounded”.

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The same comparison was made by DUP MP Ian Paisley jnr, although the Belfast Telegraph is trying to reposition itself towards a more Alliance line.

Neither Paisley nor the newspaper noted that software engineers around the world spent over a decade preparing for the last night of 1999. Their reward was derision when planes did not fall from the sky. Trade experts have been given far less time to smooth out the sea border. They can console themselves that enough will go wrong to at least get their efforts noticed.

A striking feature of coverage in Northern Ireland is how the nationalist press is moving swiftly on, demonstrating the political nimbleness of nationalism in general.

It is the unionist press that is searching out and highlighting every sea border friction.

Unionism should be delighted that Brexit has not yet produced the disaster its political opponents clearly wanted. However, the DUP cannot admit its starring role in causing the sea border and is trying to pin the blame on the SDLP, Sinn Féin and Alliance for supporting the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit withdrawal agreement.

The UUP wants to blame all those parties plus the DUP. The unionist media is reflecting this, oblivious to how self-indulgent it looks to everyone else – including many remain– voting unionists.

Coverage of sea border problems could be enormously significant, given Brexit’s potential to influence deeply held politically perspectives. It feels equally significant that this coverage could be driven by unionists exaggerating and whinging about the consequences of their own actions.

Empty supermarket shelves were the nightmare Brexit scenario in Northern Ireland. While a few pictures of this have appeared, most headlines have been grabbed by Sainsbury’s replacing missing products with Spar-branded items. This is a contingency arrangement with Henderson Group, the local wholesale supplier to Spar stores.

Rather than outrage, public reaction has been curiosity, verging on nostalgia. UK supermarkets did not arrive in Northern Ireland until after the Troubles. Everyone over 40 remembers a world of near-autarky in food retailing, with big locally-owned chains and many smaller independents offering a distinctly local selection of brands and products. Although this made grocery bills more expensive, it sustained local firms and appeared to offer a wider range of employment.

Realistically, we will never return to that world but we could start having a serious debate about the economic and environmental advantages of “onshoring” more of Northern Ireland’s food, in particular fresh food.

It is fun to image Sinn Féin and the DUP arguing over import substitution and citing South American examples.

The sea border has already been reported to be putting small traders out of business, either through administrative costs or by having their orders declined by suppliers in Britain. Public disquiet at this could be offset by a sense of new opportunities in Northern Ireland.

For nationalists, these opportunities are all-Ireland and about building an “economic united Ireland”. However, the red tape and currency frictions at the land border are comparable to the sea border. Unionists, especially those of the more Ulster-nationalist DUP stripe, might find that reassuring – if only they would calm down enough to see it.

In the end, retail problems may not be the classic Brexit scare-story. Even online shopping, which exposes the consumer more directly to the protocol’s bureaucracy, is suffering much less disruption than expected.

A constant drumbeat of aggravation is more likely to come from arcane, perverse, unforeseen little obstacles.

Northern Ireland’s guide dog charity revealed this week that it is unable to obtain new puppies for training. The UK’s national guide dog breeding centre is in England and a rabies vaccination is required to cross the sea border.

There has been extensive planning for the movement of pets but guide dogs are caught in a catch-22: the key window for their training is nine to 16 weeks and rabies vaccinations cannot be given before 12 weeks.

People are understandably aghast at this nonsense. Britain and Ireland are both rabies-free and dogs cannot enter any other EU country from either island without proof of a vaccination.

To solve the problem the UK and EU must agree an exemption via the joint and specialised committees of the withdrawal agreement, which Stormont ministers may lobby or ask to attend.

This looks like the future of sea border politics. Unionists have no hope of owning it until they reconcile themselves to making it work.