The protocol that has regulated trade around Northern Ireland since Brexit remains in place. The British Supreme Court has rejected the objections of Brexit activists and Northern Irish unionists, who believe that the protocol is illegal.
Among the people who had brought the case are some prominent Northern Irish politicians who are or have been at the head of parties that are pro-British. They believe that the protocol drawn up by the European Union and the United Kingdom after Brexit goes against the act of Union (unitary Act) of 1800. It states that all four parts of the Kingdom should be treated equally. In addition, the Brexit agreements would go against parts of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.
The trade protocol ensures that Northern Ireland has been granted a separate status within the United Kingdom (UK). Because the Good Friday Agreement requires the border with Ireland to remain open and Ireland still belongs to the EU, Northern Ireland actually remains part of the single European market. In order to protect that market, there is a trade border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, something that many pro-British Northern Irish people are angry about. They fear that their country will become further and further away from the UK and in the long run may even rejoin Ireland, the wish of the Northern Irish nationalists.
In June 2018, a judge in Belfast ruled that the Act of Union had been violated, but that that law was no longer valid anyway due to new laws, which the British Parliament had passed to regulate the departure from the EU. The activists appealed, but also according to the Supreme Court, the trade protocol is legal.
