Boris Johnson has been warned by Tory Eurosceptics that they will vote against his controversial bill to repeal the Northern Ireland Protocol if it is diluted and does not “neutralize” the Brexit text completely.
Liz Truss, the UK’s foreign minister, agreed to approve the bill after a last-minute presentation of the European Brexit Study Group, which sparked a fierce cabinet scandal on Wednesday. The law will be published next week.
Johnson, backed by top cabinet chief Michael Gove, criticized Truss for making the changes, arguing that it would increase tensions with Brussels and make a negotiated agreement with the EU impossible.
The bill to give ministers the power to repeal the protocol is being revised, but Tory Eurosceptics have issued a warning shot to Johnson, telling him they could postpone it unless he responds to their demands.
“We want to neutralize the protocol,” said a senior ERG figure, arguing that the text – part of the prime minister’s Brexit agreement with the EU in 2020 – was causing political instability in the region.
The protocol provides for post-Brexit trade agreements for Northern Ireland, which remains in the EU’s single market, to allow free trade to continue across the open border with the Republic of Ireland.
But pro-British unions in Northern Ireland oppose the protocol because it creates a trade border on the Irish Sea for goods traveling east-west from Britain.
The Democratic Unionist Party refuses to rejoin the executive branch of Northern Ireland, and the Sinn Féin Nationalist Party protests against the protocol.
Bernard Jenkin, a member of the ERG, told the Commons: “If the government presents a bill that does not offer a serious prospect of restoring power sharing in Northern Ireland and restoring the Good Friday Agreement, I will vote against it.”
Trus agreed to amend the bill to respond to ERG’s demands that the European Court of Justice should be stripped of all role in Northern Ireland and that “suspension clauses” delete key parts of the protocol within four years.
Johnson ordered Trus to soften the bill, but that raised the nightmare of blocking the law, just a week after 41 percent of his party’s deputies voted to remove it.
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The pro-European Tories, including former Prime Minister Theresa May, oppose the bill because they believe it could be illegal under international law and would damage Britain’s position in the world, deepening a rift with the EU.
The idea of joining forces with Tories’ Eurosceptic lawmakers, who may say the measure is too weak, has heightened fears among some in the cabinet of an impending political catastrophe.
Ministers on Wednesday asked if legislation to break Johnson’s international treaty was legal; others worried that the DUP had not guaranteed that it would rejoin Stormont’s executive branch, even if the bill was passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said that with “good faith, statehood and trust around the negotiating table”, the United Kingdom and the EU must be able to make technical changes to eliminate trade frictions caused by the protocol.
But he said Johnson did not have the skills to negotiate a deal and accused him of allowing a “destructive ball” in relations between the United Kingdom and Ireland, which are at a very low tide.
Simon Cowney, Ireland’s foreign minister, warned that “the EU’s position has hardened” on the protocol.
“I don’t think there is a single capital in the EU or anyone in the European Commission who believes at the moment that the British government is serious about a negotiated solution,” he said.
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