U.K. warns ‘no choice’ but to change Brexit
LONDON — Britain’s foreign secretary warned the European Union on Thursday the U.K. will have “no choice but to act” to revoke parts of a Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland if the EU does not show flexibility.
Post-Brexit arrangements for border and customs checks in Northern Ireland have become “the greatest obstacle” to forming a new government in Belfast, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said during a call with European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic.
Border issues between Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and EU member Ireland have long posed the thorniest problems in the U.K.’s divorce from the EU.
They resurfaced after the Democratic Unionist Party refused this week to help form a power-sharing government with Irish nationalist party Sinn Fein unless the post-Brexit arrangements were substantially changed or scrapped.
An open Irish border is a key part of the peace process that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland, which is the only part of the U.K. to share a land border with an EU country. The EU and the U.K. agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks after Brexit, which became final at the end of 2020.
Instead, there are checks on some goods, such as meat and eggs, entering Northern Ireland from elsewhere in the U.K. The Democratic Unionist Party is strongly opposed to the rules, saying the checks have created a barrier that undermines the British identity of its members.
Truss’s office said Sefcovic reiterated to her Thursday “there was no room to expand the EU negotiating mandate or introduce new proposals to reduce the overall level of trade friction.”
“The foreign secretary noted this with regret and said the situation in Northern Ireland is a matter of internal peace and security for the United Kingdom,” a Foreign Office statement says.
“If the EU would not show the requisite flexibility to help solve those issues, then as a responsible government we would have no choice but to act.”