Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
No10 ignores peer pressure
Bojo to keep Brexit bill’s ‘illegal’ parts
CONTROVERSIAL measures which tear up parts of the Brexit divorce agreement will not return to the Commons until the end of November at the earliest.
Peers, including dozens of senior Tories, voted to strip controversial clauses from the UK Internal Market Bill that would enable ministers to set aside key parts of the Withdrawal Agreement signed with the EU, breaking an international treaty.
The Government still wants the measures, which have soured relations with Brussels and the US president-elect Joe Biden, and MPS would be asked to put them back in the legislation.
By delaying, Boris Johnson will know whether progress has been made on a UK-EU trade deal which could take the heat out of the row with Brussels.
On Monday night the Government suffered a 268-vote defeat over one element of the Bill, with 44 rebels including former Tory leader Lord Howard.
But Downing Street said the measures represented a “legal safety net” to ensure free-flowing trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said: “We have been consistently clear that the clauses represent a legal safety net to protect the int egrity of th e UK ’s internal market and the huge gains of the peace process. And
we expect the House of Lords to recognise that we have an obligation to the people of Northern Ireland, to make sure that they continue to have unfettered access to the UK.”
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said if the UK passed measures “designed to break international law, there will be no trade deal” . The Prime Minister’s stance is unlikely to improve relations with incoming US president Joe Biden. The president-elect, who has Irish ancestry, said a future UK-US trade deal with the US was “contingent” on the prevention of a return to a hard border. Brussels’ negotiator Michel Barnier is holding talks in London this week with his counterpart Lord Frost.