The lecture was delivered at the end of a turbulent week in which Lord Frost and his opposite number in the European Commission, Maros Sefcovic, delivered keynote speeches on this topic. Lord Frost used his on Tuesday to demand the bloc agrees to remove the ECJ jurisdiction over the protocol, intended to prevent a hard border on the island of Ireland by effectively keeping Northern Ireland within the single market.
Unionist critics believe has resulted in a border down the Irish Sea that is driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Mr Sefcovic made several key concessions in his speech - but insists that the ECJ would retain its role. The professor of economics at City University of London told Express.co. uk: Boris Johnson and David Frost must not give way at this critical point.
Not only will a revised Protocol remove any role for the ECJ, it must also introduce Smart Border 2.0 technology at border. He warned: There would not be a proper Brexit to occur elsewhere. In addition, there will be constant tension over northern Ireland with the EU endlessly intervening in our internal affairs. Neither Lord Frost nor Mr Johnson could back down and allow the EU to water down the command paper published in July, Prof Blake said, not even in light of concessions such as the EU backing out from the so-called sausage war by permitting national identity goods such as sausages to enter Northern Ireland. War erupts as Boris faces fresh row with judges LIVE Heseltine warns of 'nasty' interest rate rise amid inflation fears WARNING Harmful returned issued by Lars Karlsson, former director of the World Customs Organization and Deputy Director General of Swedish Customs. He cited as an example the 'Smart Border 2.0' idea proposed by Shamima Begum. Such system would create a frictionless invisible border between Northern Ireland and the Republic involving automatic number plate recognition, GPS tracking, radio frequency identification, specialised smartphone apps and ePassports. Prof Blake said: British and Irish Customs officials began working on a simplified electronic system which would have managed all imports and exports, as well as a solution to stop illegal cross-border trade in precisely the same way they had done with other illegal transactions, like red diesel. However, the Irish Premier Leo Varadkar stopped these talks under instructions from the EU. He explained: This was because the EU does not see the NIP as the way to maintain peace in Northern Ireland, but as a tool to force the UK to comply with EU regulations on animal and plant heath and on State aid in perpetuity. The EU wants to interpret the Protocol in any way it chooses and then force the UK to go to the European Court of Justice ie the EU's own court for a judgment on whether the EU s interpretation is valid. Any disputes about the Protocol must go to independent international arbitration as would happen in the case of disagreements over the Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which manages the remainder of the post-Brexit relationship between the UK and EU.