Boris blasts border backstop ‘monstrosity’
FORMER UK Foreign Minister Boris Johnson has described the EU’s Irish backstop proposal as “a constitutional monstrosity” that wipes out British sovereignty.
Writing in today’s Daily Telegraph, Mr Johnson says that Brexit will be “a total write-off ” if the Irish backstop is allowed to stand.
“In March the EU Commission published a protocol spelling it out: that until Brussels agreed otherwise, Northern Ireland would have to remain effectively part of the EU.
“As it stands, this version of the Irish backstop is little short of an attempt to annex Northern Ireland. It would imply customs and regulatory controls between Britain and Northern Ireland, and therefore a border down the Irish Sea.”
Mr Johnson says that such a move would also be a breach of the Belfast Agreement, as it “would amount to a change in Northern Ireland’s constitutional status without its people’s consent — a total breach of the peace settlement”.
He contends that the Irish backstop proposal effectively gives the EU control over the UK, even after the UK has left the EU.
“We are now saying that if Brussels cannot be satisfied on our plans for the Irish border, then we are volunteering that the whole of the UK must remain effectively in the customs union and large parts of the single market until Brussels says otherwise.”
Mr Johnson claims that the Chequers Brexit proposals of Prime Minister Theresa May
(left) will also put the EU in the driving seat after Brexit. “They mean that the UK will become a rules-taker not just in goods and agrifoods, but almost certainly in the environment and social policy and many other legislative areas.
“The whole thing is a constitutional abomination, and if Chequers were adopted it would mean that for the first time since 1066 our leaders were deliberately acquiescing in foreign rule.”
Mr Johnson said there is no other country in the world that would accept such an arrangement.
“Both versions of the backstop are disastrous. One threatens the Union; the other version — and its close cousin, Chequers — keep us effectively in the EU, as humiliated rules takers.
“We need to challenge the assumptions of both these Irish backstops, or we are heading full throttle for the ditch with a total write-off of Brexit.”
Mr Johnson’s broadside comes as Mrs May prepares to attend a two-day EU summit that starts on Wednesday in Salzburg, Austria, where she hopes to make a breakthrough in the Brexit negotiations by selling her Chequers plan directly to fellow leaders.