70 Whitehall 

“Humphrey.” 

“Yes, Minister?” 

“I hear our gallant friends in Ulster will not be allowed to breakfast on British sausages after 1st July.” 

“That’s correct.” 

“Why on earth not?” 

“As I am sure you are aware, Minister, they do not comply with regulation EC 853/2004.” 

“Never heard of it.” 

“Inter 151 pages of alia, EC Regulation 853/2004 says about meat products, i.e. sausages: ‘Certain foodstuffs may present specific hazards to human health, requiring the setting of specific hygiene rules. This is particularly the case for food of animal origin, in which microbiological and chemical hazards have frequently been reported.’” 

“Frequently been reported? Has any continental ever reported a single hazard?” 

“That might be because continentals don’t eat our sausages and Her Britannic Majesty’s subjects have, over the centuries, acquired immunity.  Of course, that might not apply to the Duchess of Sussex but she may not have lived long enough in the UK to acquire immunity and has now put herself at a safe distance.” 

“You are wandering, Humphrey. The fact is these sausages were considered perfectly complicit with EU regulations when we were in the EU, the regulations haven’t changed and nor have the sausages, so why should they be banned now?”  

“They are not banned from consumption, Minister, just for import from third countries, which did not include us then, but does now.” 

“So it’s another EU non-tariff barrier like VI-1 forms to deter the imports of third country wines.” 

“Indeed, Minister, but in this case it was unintended.” 

“So the Ulstermen could produce exactly the same sausages in Belfast and send them all round the EU?” 

“It would seem so, Minister. Maybe the Protocol does open trade opportunities for Northern Ireland after all. Although I doubt it. Pork sausages made in the Republic of Ireland are much the same as British ones, apart from their shape, and the continentals do not go for those either.” 

“Well, that’s really what is daft. The EU insists this ban is necessary to prevent the British sausage undermining the sanctity of the single market by flooding into the Republic and all other parts of the EU thereafter. The reality is that the Republic is awash with its own sausages and none of the continentals want to go near them.” 

“The EU is not interested in reality; it cares about rules and the logic thereof. It is an ideal; a fictional aspiration designed to stop the tribes of Europe squabbling but ultimately ensuring they will do exactly that – or that’s what recent polls indicate.” 

“You may be right, but that’s too clever for me.  The issue today, Humphrey, is that Ulstermen must have their British sausage and if that is something we overlooked in the Brexit talks, you can’t expect us to have thought of everything.  It was all very complicated.” 

“No one admires more than I do, the ability of our ministers, advised by their civil servants of course, to cover every detail across an enormous range, but I must mention un petit oubli, if I can put it that way. On the 17th December, your colleague Michael Gove agreed a grace period until 1st July.[2]  Far be it from me to be critical, but he simply kicked the can six months down the road, when he should have pointed to paragraph 27 of the introduction to the regulation which says ‘Scientific advice should underpin Community legislation on food hygiene.‘? As we have 40-something years of harmless EU enjoyment of the British sausage, there is no scientific evidence to support banning its import.” 

“Well spotted, Humphrey, even Brussels would have to recognise that as the reality of that. Unfortunately we can’t blame Mr Gove now.  He is one of our star players.  We simply have to blame the French.”  

“I quite understand, Minister.  M. Macron has given us an opening when he said the Protocol cannot be amended.  He clearly has not read it.  The Protocol is designed as a working document: intended to be amended.” 

“Jolly good.  Nothing like biffing the Frogs.” 

“There is one other small ray of sunshine.  Mrs May, as you will recall, imported all the EU regulations into UK law, en bloc, to make transition easier.  So now under UK law, the French cannot make British bangers and export them to us at prices lower than ours.  As a third country, their sausages would be deemed hazardous.” 

“Do they show the slightest desire to do that?” 

“Well, I did say it was a ‘small ray’.”