Johnson to push ahead with Brexit law despite Biden’s warning
BORIS JOHNSON will risk a rift with Joe Biden by pushing ahead this week with a Brexit law which the presidentelect has said he fears will jeopardise peace in Northern Ireland.
The Prime Minister insisted that he will push ahead with an unamended Internal Market Bill, despite peers being expected today or tomorrow to reject half a dozen clauses contained within it which breach the EU Withdrawal Agreement.
In September Mr Biden warned that the unamended Bill could jeopardise the peace process by imposing a hard border on the island of Ireland.
That came after the UK Government admitted that the legislation broke international law in a “specific and limited way”.
Mr Biden wrote on Twitter at the time: “We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit.”
Mr Johnson yesterday moved to reassure the US, saying that the peace process would not be undermined.
He said: “The parliamentary timetable goes ahead. The whole point of that Bill – and indeed the Finance Bill – is to protect and uphold the Good Friday Agreement and the peace process in Northern Ireland. And again, that’s one of the things that we’re united on with our friends in the White House.”
Mr Johnson and Mr Biden had not spoken since the election result by last night. Diplomatic sources in London said they expected Mr Biden to call Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and President Emmanuel Macron of France before the Prime Minister.
Mr Johnson – who has never met Mr Biden – also insisted that the special relationship with the US will not change now that a Democrat is in charge of the White House. He said: “The United States is our closest and most important ally. And that’s been the case under president after president, prime minister after prime minister. It won’t change.
“And I look forward to working with President Biden and his team on a lot of crucial stuff for us in the weeks and months ahead: tackling climate change, trade, international security.”
A close ally of Mr Biden known as his “whisperer” said the president-elect did not regard Mr Johnson as a British Trump. Chris Coons, who holds the president-elect’s former Senate seat and may become his secretary of state, praised the Prime Minister’s intellect.
Asked if Donald Trump’s description of Mr Johnson as “Britain Trump” was a view the Biden team shared, Mr Coons said: “No, it’s not.”
He said he had met Mr Johnson and found him “more agile, engaging, educated and forward looking than perhaps the caricature of him in the American press would have suggested”.