LONDON (Bywire News) - The British government will provide post-Brexit legislation to Parliament regarding trade provisions for Northern Ireland, on Monday. The measures risk a confrontation with the EU and will further reduce the level of credibility the UK has overseas.
Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, is to present the bill which will give the UK the power to ignore parts of the protocol. The bill has been the subject of intense disagreement in Cabinet with Eurosceptics threatening to vote it down unless it achieves their goal of completely neutralising the protocol. Bernard Jenkin, one ERG member, told the Commons: “If the government brings forward a bill that does not hold out the serious prospect of the restoration of power sharing in Northern Ireland and the restoration of the Good Friday Agreement, I will vote against it.”
On the other hand, the government is under pressure to come up with a solution the EU might negotiate on.
The protocol had been negotiated in 2019 to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the rest of Ireland which remains in the EU. However, it has created political issues in the country and threatens to derail the power-sharing agreement in Stormont. The Democratic Union's party refused to reappoint new ministers until the checks on the Irish Sea border on goods coming into Northern Ireland from Great Britain were scrapped.
During negotiations, Boris Johnson insisted there would be no border down the Irish Sea. That, however, would turn out to be just one in a long line of broken promises by the Prime Minister. Johnson attracted more criticism when he appeared to suggest he had agreed to the protocol in the hope that the EU would not apply it.
His comments have prompted many to suggest he does not understand his own deal.
(Writing by Anna Kapanadze, editing by Tom Cropper and Klaudia Fior)