UK calls for moratorium on Northern Irish protocol July 22, 2021 by archyde At the start of April, Northern Ireland experienced its biggest outbreak of violence since the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998. For ten days, footage of riots and clashes between young Northern Irish loyalists in favor of keeping Ireland in the UK, and the police shocked the whole country. Events which, by reviving the memory of Troubles of the last century, recall that the issue of Brexit can quickly become a dangerous spark in the powder keg in Northern Ireland. Customs controls in the Irish Sea Under the terms of the Brexit deal, the province of Northern Ireland is kept in the European single market and customs union for goods. As a result, customs checks at the Irish Sea are necessary for goods arriving on Northern Irish soil. This device, to avoid the reestablishment of a hard border with the Republic of Ireland to the south, which would contravene the Good Friday agreement.