A border inside the UK brings Northern Ireland closer to the republic

LIKE MANY people, Viviane Gravey became more interested in gardening during lockdown. She bought dill and lettuce seeds from Real Seeds, a firm in Wales, and grew them on her balcony. But next year’s crop will have to come from another source, for the firm emailed her to say that, because of the new border in the Irish Sea, it would no longer sell to Northern Ireland.

During the fraught negotiations over the UK-EU trade deal, a number of British firms stopped supplying Northern Ireland. Now that the deal is done, some may return to the market, but the new border will raise costs. Firms may pass them on to consumers or decide that the Northern Irish market is too small to bother with.