LONDON — The
UK government will Monday
introduce legislation to unilaterally rip up post-Brexit trading rules for
Northern Ireland, despite the potential for a trade war with the EU.
اضافة اعلان
London says it still prefers a negotiated outcome
with the
European Union to reform the “Northern Ireland Protocol”, whose
provisions have become anathema to pro-UK unionists in the divided territory.
But without a deal through dialogue, the bill would
take effect to override Britain’s EU withdrawal treaty — although the
government insists it is not breaking international law.
Northern Ireland Secretary
Brandon Lewis said Sunday
that the protocol was disrupting trade and had crippled the territory’s
power-sharing government, due to unionist objections.
“So it’s right that we repair that,” he said, adding
that the need to protect a 1998 peace agreement in Northern Ireland had
“primacy” over the protocol.
Lewis rejected threats from some in the EU that
unilateral changes could trigger the suspension of the withdrawal treaty’s
wider trade agreement, leading to sanctions and tariffs against Britain.
The UK can ill-afford a trade war, at a time when
its people are grappling with the worst inflationary crisis in a generation.
“I think that kind of language is really unhelpful,”
the minister said on Times Radio, pointing to the need for Britain and the EU
to work together against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
However, patience with
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s tactics is wearing thin in Ireland and the wider EU.
Ireland’s foreign minister Simon Coveney spoke with
his UK counterpart Liz Truss on Monday, telling her the move marked “a
particular low point in the UK’s approach to Brexit”, his office said.
Truss also talked to European Commission
Vice President Maros Sefcovic, who said he warned the UK minister that “unilateral action is
damaging to mutual trust and a formula for uncertainty”.
But Johnson told LBC radio that the move was “the
right way forward” and was required to maintain the “balance and the symmetry”
of the Good Friday agreement.
“One community at the moment feels very, very
estranged from the way things are operating, very alienated. And we’ve just got
to fix that.”
Green channel, red line
In a historic first, Irish
nationalists Sinn Fein emerged as the biggest party in Northern Ireland
elections last month.
The pro-
UK Democratic Unionist Party argues that the
protocol is jeopardising Northern Ireland’s status in the UK and is boycotting
the local government, leaving it in limbo under the 1998 deal.
The protocol requires checks on goods arriving from
England, Scotland and Wales, to prevent them from entering the EU’s single
market via the Republic of Ireland.
The UK bill is expected to scrap most of the checks,
creating a “green channel” for British traders to send goods to Northern
Ireland without making any customs declaration to the EU.
The EU would have access to more real-time UK data
on the flow of goods, and only businesses intending to trade into the single
market via Ireland would be required to make declarations.
The EU would need to trust the UK to monitor the flow, and
the UK has vowed “robust penalties” for any companies seeking to abuse the new
system.
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