The word of the week is "purism".

It seems that following the letter of the law is only for little people, or little countries, and not for this Government or Britain.

In an article in the Torygraph this week, the man that negotiated the WA, NIP and TCA, "Sir" David Frost, comlained that the EU are taking a legal purism view of what was agreed and need to be more flexible.

Rather than expecting this great trading nation to actually comply with what he signed us up to do.

Having negotiated commercial contracts, and executed said contracts for six years, I can tell you, what is written in the contracts, or trade agreements, is everything. Using a phrase like "not what was intended" or purism, matters not a jot.

Frost went on to say that the level of compliance issues with trade between Britain and NI was a surprise. Only to him and Johnson, perhaps, but there were warnings aplently, even on these posts wherre it was made clear that the NIP broke up the UK single market. This is not a result of legal purism, but as a result of the very Brexit Johnson and Frost negotiated.

They should take ownership of this, rather than take to the right wing press to bitch about how life, and the EU, is so unfair.

The reality is that trade and relations between the UK and EU needs to be normalised as soon as possible, and bridges and trust built.The UK has very little wiggle room as Biden is piling on the pressure not to damage Ireland, and the UK seems intent on doing. The UK, or Britain, or England really, is caught now between the EU and US, and will have to step into line at some point due to pressure from Biden and the economic realities of Brexit.

I say again, the hard Brexit decided upon by May and continued by Johnson created a regulatory border between the UK and EU, it was a case of where you wanted the border. May chose across Ireland which was never going to work or be accepted and would have been in violation of parts of the GFA, and so Johnson chose the other optoion; in the Irish Sea.

This created a different kind of political crisis, but it is a crisis Johnson invesnted with his vision of Brexit. Brexi wasn't defined in the referendum, just that the UK should "leave the EU", nothing about just political and/or economic Brexit, the Governments of May and JOhnson did that.

There is now arguments between Britain and the EU over the imports of sausages and mince into NI, as new regulations come into force this month, bringing to mind an episode of Yes, Prime Minister. But this is the Brexit that Johnson wanted, Frost negotiated and the UK Parliament ratified.