The UK government is preparing legislation that will give ministers broad powers to break the post-Brexit agreement regulating trade in Northern Ireland, risking a new confrontation with Brussels.
Two people familiar with the internal discussions said that Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Foreign Minister Liz Truss had generally signed plans to present a bill for Northern Ireland at the beginning of the next parliamentary session, which begins next month.
Insiders in Whitehall said the Johnson administration was working on plans in part in anticipation of a new constitutional crisis if mostly Protestant Unionist parties – all of which rejected the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol – refused to re-enter the region’s executive after the election. Northern Ireland on 5 May.
Under the proposed legislation, which has not yet been presented to the cabinet, ministers will have unilateral powers to exclude key parts of the protocol from UK law, including border checks on goods traveling to the region from the UK.
The move is expected to provoke anger in Brussels and EU capitals. Last autumn, the EU signaled that it could suspend its post-Brexit trade deal with the United Kingdom if London rejects its commitments under the protocol.
The planned legislation echoes a previous gambit by the Johnson administration in 2020 of rejecting parts of the protocol into UK law. This has accelerated judicial action by the European Commission, which has been put on hold pending the outcome of the negotiations.
An EU diplomat warned that any UK law that violates international law at a time when Western powers were seeking a united front for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would be “completely irresponsible”.
The diplomat added that Vladimir Putin, the Russian leader, would be pleased. “Given what is at stake in Ukraine and the West as a whole, this is definitely not the time to bet on Britain’s reputation as a firm party to a rule-based international order,” the diplomat said.
A spokesman for the UK government said: “No decisions have been made yet and our main priority remains to protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland.
The deal, which Johnson negotiated with the EU in October 2019, created a trade border in the Irish Sea and left Northern Ireland, following EU rules on trade in goods, to avoid a return to a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The UK government has repeatedly said the deal was “unsustainable” because it divided the UK’s internal market and unbalanced the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement, undermining the region’s ties with mainland Britain.
Negotiations between London and Brussels to resolve differences over the implementation of the protocol are stalled.
The planned legislation is being debated ahead of highly sensitive local elections in Northern Ireland on 5 May, with the Sinn Féin nationalist party set to become the largest party in the region for the first time.
Insiders familiar with internal discussions in the UK government said the bill would give ministers broad powers to castrate Articles 5 to 10 of the protocol, which are the legal heart of the deal.
According to the minutes, the Assembly of Northern Ireland must vote periodically to give its continued consent to Articles 5 to 10, with the first vote in December 2024.
Insiders said the bill, if passed, would give ministers the power to ignore the outcome of that vote in UK law.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Brexit’s minister of opportunities, told lawmakers on Wednesday that the UK had the right to take unilateral action if Brussels did not “reform” the protocol and that the wheels were “moving” without giving details.
Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s Minister for European Affairs, criticized Reese-Mogg’s intervention so close to the May 5th election. “The UK government must allow the election to take place in Northern Ireland without this kind of distraction,” he tweeted.
An EU spokesman said the only way to bring security and predictability to Northern Ireland was to agree on joint solutions. “Unilateral decisions will never work. The EU has withdrawn all stops in recent months and is ready to work further with the UK in the coming weeks, “they added.
A spokesman for the UK government said: “As we have consistently said, the government will take steps to protect the Belfast Agreement (Good Friday) if no solutions can be found to amend the protocol.
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