This weekend marks the end of Boris Johnson’s term as Prime Minister (PM), with the result of the election of his successor due to be announced on Monday and Liz Truss expected to take over as PM on Tuesday.

Irish interest in the British PM has never been greater, because they will shape the UK side of the relationship with the EU.

With legislation hurtling through parliament to overrule the Northern Ireland Protocol agreed with the EU, time is of the essence in trying to get a workable relationship on cross-border trade.

The importance of this is brought into sharp focus by the volume of Irish agri-food exports going north in the first half of the year, as well as cattle and pigs for processing.

Similarly, the pattern for one-third of Northern Ireland milk and just under half of lambs coming south for processing is also well established.

Without a mutually agreed arrangement with the EU, this business is in serious jeopardy.

Cross-border trade

The cross-border nature in trade of processed agri-food products is also highlighted by Bord Bia’s export figures for the first half of 2022 compared with the same period in 2021.

Even allowing for the fact that January to June 2021 was distorted by both COVID-19 and the fact that much product had been traded ahead of Brexit coming into effect on 1 January, the first six months of 2022 have returned exceptional performance.

Beef exports are at their highest level in the past five years at 132,437t, the previous highest being the first six months of 2018 when 124,891t of beef went north.

The growth is even more spectacular in dairy, with 350,980t going from south to north in the first six months of this year compared with the previous highest of 219,798t in the first six months of 2020.

Reasons for this business are varied and the likelihood that an element of further processing is involved before the final product is sold in either EU or UK markets.

Farmers and companies trade cross border

For example, the Dawn acquisition of Dunbia means that it can use the Dungannon retail packing facility for beef or any other meat product.

Similarly, the ABP ownership of Linden means that the Linden retail packing and processing facilities can be used by ABP to process beef from the Republic of Ireland should it choose to do so.

With dairy, milk has been frequently referred to as the example where it is collected in Northern Ireland, processed at a dairy in the Republic of Ireland before going back north again for the manufacture of cream liqueur.

All of this shows the necessity of seamless cross-border trade, as envisaged by the protocol.

This has become politically toxic, but it won’t be resolved by the unilateral legislation by the UK, as this will inevitably lead to the EU requiring Ireland to take responsibility for controlling access to the EU single market.

That, in turn, means either a land border with the current trade patterns no longer paraclival or perhaps enforcement of border controls between Ireland and the rest of the EU.

Time for solution

The sensible and necessary third way has to be the EU and UK putting heads together to find a practical solution to both internal UK trade between Britain and Northern Ireland, as well as cross-border trade in Ireland.

This will mean neither a completely pure and perfect Brexit nor a completely pure and perfect single market as currently defined.

However, the UK doesn’t need a trade war with the EU and, similarly, the EU needs the UK to operate border controls to protect the single market in order to avoid border controls on the island of Ireland.

A new PM in the UK is an opportunity to reset relations and we shouldn’t pay too much attention to what has been said in the leadership campaign.

The UK faces a huge economic challenge in the months ahead, war continues in Ukraine and there is a chance that it might just be time to resolve the Brexit issue once and for all.