Boris Johnson has been warned by conservative Eurosceptics who will vote against his controversial bill to overturn the Northern Ireland protocol if it dilutes and does not completely “neutralize” the Brexit text.
Liz Truss, the UK Secretary of State, agreed to tighten the bill following last-minute representations from the European Pro-Brexit Research Group, which sparked a heated cabinet dispute on Wednesday. The law will be published next week.
Johnson, backed by Prime Minister Michael Gove, criticized Truss for making the changes, arguing that it would increase tensions with Brussels and make a negotiated deal with the EU impossible.
The bill to give ministers the power to overturn the protocol is being reworded, but conservative Eurosceptics fired a warning shot at Johnson, telling him they could vote against him unless he complied. their demands.
“We want to neutralize the protocol,” a senior ERG figure said, arguing that the text, which is part of the prime minister’s 2020 Brexit deal with the EU, 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 for goods to allow free trade to continue across an open border with the Republic of Ireland.
But pro-UK unionists in Northern Ireland oppose the protocol because it creates a trade border in the Irish Sea for goods traveling from east to west from Britain.
The Democratic Unionist Party refuses to join the Northern Ireland executive, with Sinn Féin, the nationalist party, protesting the protocol.
Bernard Jenkin, a member of the ERG, told the Commons: “If the government introduces a bill that does not offer the serious prospect of restoring the distribution of power in Northern Ireland and restoring the Friday Agreement Holy, I will vote against it. ”
Truss agreed to adjust the bill to suit the ERG’s demands that the European Court of Justice should be stripped of any role in Northern Ireland and that the “expiration clauses” remove key parts of the protocol in a term of four years.
Johnson has ordered Truss to lower the tone of the bill, but that raises the nightmare scenario of the legislation blockade, just one week after 41 percent of his party’s deputies voted to oust him.
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Pro-European Conservatives, including former Prime Minister Theresa May, oppose the bill because they believe it could be illegal under international law and would hurt the UK’s position in the world, deepening the rift with the EU.
The idea of joining forces with conservative Eurosceptic MPs, who may conclude that the measure is too weak, reinforces fears among some in the cabinet of an ongoing political disaster.
Ministers asked Wednesday whether legislation to break Johnson’s international treaty was legal; others worried that the DUP would not guarantee that he would rejoin the Stormont executive, even if the bill was passed.
Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said that with “good faith, craft and confidence around the negotiating table”, the UK and the EU should be able to make technical changes to eliminate the trade friction caused. by protocol.
But he said Johnson did not have the skills to negotiate a deal and accused him of taking “a demolition ball” to UK-Ireland relations, which are at a very low ebb.
Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, warned that the “EU’s position has been tightened” on the protocol.
“I don’t think there is any capital in the whole EU, or anyone in the European Commission, that believes, for the time being, anyway, that the British government is taking a negotiated solution seriously,” he said.