WE CANNOT GO ON AS WE ARE

Frost threatens to tear up Northern Ireland deal unless EU backs down

BRITAIN was on collision course with Brussels again last night after threatening to tear up Northern Ireland trade rules.

Lord Frost said the Brexit agreement signed by Boris Johnson needed major changes because its implementation by the EU was causing significant disruption and ‘societal instability’.

‘We cannot go on as we are,’ added the peer, who negotiated the deal.

The Brexit minister said the impact was so great it would justify the UK suspending parts of the agreement under Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol. He said this option was ‘on the table’ but stopped short of triggering it yesterday in the hope of negotiating a solution.

The protocol effectively keeps Northern Ireland in the EU’s single market for goods, with inspections designed to stop products entering the bloc by the back door.

The UK’s solution would mean an end to checks on most shipments from Britain to Northern Ireland. Firms would be asked to declare if goods were destined to go on into the Republic, in which case they would continue to face checks.

Brussels yesterday ruled out a renegotiation although European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic did not reject the UK’s approach out of hand.

‘We will continue to engage with the UK, also on the suggestions made today,’ he said. ‘We are ready to continue to seek creative solutions, within the framework of the protocol, in the interest of all communities in Northern Ireland. However, we will not agree to a renegotiation of the protocol.’

Boris Johnson, who had pledged there would be no checks on trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, yesterday warned the row was acting as ‘a drag on the new partnership between the UK and the EU’. He said the UK had made a ‘huge compromise’ and now needed to make some changes to prevent it driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

But one EU diplomat who works on Brexit accused Lord Frost of ‘pulling a politically convenient stunt’ to try to secure better terms.

‘How can he not be satisfied with the very deal he negotiated and which he hailed as a great success?’ the diplomat said.

Senior Commission sources suggested that Britain had long planned to rewrite the protocol once the Brexit deal had been approved by both sides. ‘I don’t know anybody here surprised by this move,’ said one.

Lord Frost’s intervention is the latest attempt to definitively end the so-called ‘sausage war’ that erupted earlier this year. EU rules prevent the sale in Northern Ireland of chilled meat products from Britain once a temporary ‘grace period’ has expired.

That grace period has been rolled over until October and ministers now want a permanent solution.

Similar grace periods exist for

‘Nobody here is surprised’

many other categories of supermarket produce and for parcels sent from Britain. Ministers fear that even medical supplies could be disrupted.

The UK’s proposals would remove medicines from the arrangement altogether and end the role of the European Court of Justice in policing the deal.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis said: ‘The past few months have shown the current approach to the protocol is simply not working.

‘We have seen trade diverted, supply chains disrupted, and increased costs due to added bureaucracy. This is all having a considerable impact on everyday life in Northern Ireland.’

A UK Government document suggests that EU checks on goods sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are out of all proportion to the supposed threat to the single market.

It found that they account for 20 per cent of those conducted by the EU along its borders.