Brussels has 72 hours to act over protocol, warns Truss

Foreign Secretary will give EU deadline to end border checks despite warnings of trade pact being scrapped

LIZ TRUSS will today warn Brussels it has 72 hours to budge in talks over Northern Ireland border checks or the Government will unveil legislation to tear up the protocol.

The Foreign Secretary is set to tell EU counterpart Maros Sefcovic that the long-running negotiations have reached the end of the road unless the bloc’s leaders rewrite his mandate.

British sources said a decision will be taken as early as Monday over whether to hand ministers sweeping powers to override large parts of the Brexit withdrawal deal.

No10 is already wargaming the EU’S likely response, amid warnings from officials in Brussels that they will retaliate by scrapping the cross-channel trade pact.

There are also fears France could revive its threats to impose “go-slow” checks at Calais to snarl up shipments of food and goods headed for Britain.

Boris Johnson warned eurocrats that he will prioritise the integrity and stability of the UK above all other considerations and urged them not to create any “drama”.

He suggested it would be “crazy” for the bloc to start a trade war over worries about border controls given Northern Ireland amounts to just 0.4 per cent of the EU economy.

Speaking at a press conference alongside Magdalena Andersson, the Swedish prime minister, he said: “The most important agreement is the 25-year-old Belfast/good Friday Agreement.

“That is crucial for the stability of our country, of the UK, of Northern Ireland and that means things have got to command cross-community support.

“Plainly, the Northern Ireland Protocol fails to do that and we need to sort it out.”

Conor Burns, the Northern Ireland minister, said the Government will be under a “moral obligation” to unilaterally scrap checks if Brussels does not change its stance.

“We don’t want to legislate unilaterally but we have got a duty above all to the citizens of our United Kingdom in Northern Ireland to fix this,” he told the BBC.

“It would be irresponsible for us, if the EU will not widen Vice-president Sefcovic’s negotiating mandate, to simply stand back and do nothing.”

Mr Burns, who is in Washington explaining the UK’S stance to Senators and White House aides, suggested No10 believes Emmanuel Macron is blocking a more flexible approach.

“It will not be the UK being belligerent on this. It will be that our negotiating partner has stopped talking to us and therefore we will have to take action for our citizens.”

Michael Gove, who is among the Cabinet doves pushing for continuing the talks with Brussels, said “no option was off the table” on the protocol.

Downing St played down the idea that there was a firm deadline for ending the talks or that today’s phonecall between Ms Truss and Mr Sefcovic is a “last chance”.

A No10 spokesman said: “We absolutely haven’t given up. We are working extremely hard to find real solutions to this.

“But what is clear is that the EU’S proposals as they stand do not fix the underlying problems with the protocol. In some cases they make things worse.”

Even if the legislation is announced, insiders fear it could take over a year to get through Parliament given it will face stiff opposition in the Lords.

Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, warned the threat to rip up checks had already “gone down very badly” in Brussels and the bloc would respond with legal action if it was enacted.

“What the EU can’t do is not react to a breach of international law, to an undermining of a Withdrawal Agreement that has a significant impact on the EU as well as the UK”, he said.

Brussels would likely respond by cancelling all the grace periods that allow access for goods like chilled meats going from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland.