On Monday, Boris Johnson renewed British threats to break a Brexit agreement with the European Union.
On Monday, in London (U.K.)- Prime Minister Boris Johnson renewed British threats to breach a Brexit agreement with the European Union. He blamed it for a political crisis in Northern Ireland that impeded the formation of a new government.
Johnson said ahead of a visit to Belfast that there would be a “necessity to act” if the E.U. does not agree to overhaul post-Brexit trade rules that he claims destabilize Northern Ireland’s delicate political balance.
This month, Northern Ireland voters elected a new Assembly, with the Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein winning the most seats. It was the first time a party seeking union with the Republic of Ireland won an election in the Protestant unionist stronghold.
The Democratic Unionist Party came in second and refused to form a government or even convene the assembly until Johnson’s government removed post-Brexit checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.
A government cannot be formed under the power-sharing rules, which were established as part of Northern Ireland’s peace process, without the cooperation of both nationalist and unionist parties.
Johnson was scheduled to meet with party leaders in Belfast, where he urged them to get back to work and “focus on everyday issues.” Schools and hospitals “Living Expenses.”
However, he also accused the E.U. of refusing to budge on post-Brexit border checks.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom that borders the European Union. When the United Kingdom exited the E.U. in 2020, an agreement was reached to keep the Irish land border free of customs posts and other checks. An open frame is a crucial pillar of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland. Instead, some goods, such as meat and eggs, are subject to checks as they enter Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.
The British government agrees that the regulations, known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, are destabilizing a peace agreement that relies on support from both Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist communities.
While the DUP wants the Protocol scrapped, most other parties in Northern Ireland want to keep it, with changes.
“There is no disguising that the delicate balance created (by the peace agreement) in 1998 has been upset,” Johnson wrote. “One part of the political community in Northern Ireland feels like its aspirations and identity are threatened by the working of the Protocol.”
In the Belfast Telegraph, Johnson accused the E.U. of failing to recognize that the arrangements weren’t working. He said the government wanted to change, but not scrap, the agreement.
“I hope the E.U.’s position changes. If it does not, he will need to act,” he wrote.
Johnson said his government would “set out a more detailed assessment and next steps to Parliament in the coming days.” That’s likely to be legislation that would give Britain powers to override parts of the Brexit treaty.
Any such bill would take months to pass through Parliament, but the unilateral move would anger the E.U., which would hit back with legal action — and potentially trade sanctions. The 27-nation bloc is Britain’s most significant economic partner.
Ivan Rogers, a former British ambassador to the E.U., said, “I think there’s a severe risk that we are heading into a trade war.”
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said a U.K.-EU feud “is the last thing Europe needs right now when we are working so well together in the face of Russian aggression and responding to the support needed for Ukraine.”
“This is a time for calmness, a time for dialogue, and a time for compromise and partnership between the E.U. and the U.K. to solve these outstanding issues,” he said in Brussels.