PM pressed to freeze £20bn EU ‘Danegeld’ over NI deal

Eurosceptics suggest Boris Johnson should halt Brexit payments until issues over the border are resolved

BORIS JOHNSON has been told by Eurosceptic MPs he should consider halting Brexit bill payments to the European Union until the difficulties with the Northern Ireland Protocol have been resolved.

Last week the Prime Minister admitted during a visit to the province that the protocol, which was intended to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, was not working as he had expected.

Britain is due to make £20 billion worth of divorce payments to the EU over the next two years under the terms of the exit, with more following in subsequent years.

However, Mark Francois, the chairman of the 60-strong European Research Group of Conservative MPs, said that Johnson should reconsider these sums amid concern over the way the EU is unfairly enforcing regulations for UK exports.

He described the sums as “Danegeld”, a land tax levied in Anglo-Saxon England during the reign of King Ethelred to raise funds for protection against Danish invaders.

Mr Francois told The Sunday Telegraph: “Since we left the transition period the EU’s attitude has been increasing bellicose.

“First they criticised our ‘British’ vaccine and then attacked us for not giving them enough of it; then they triggered Article 16, in some overnight spasm, to create a hard border they had sworn to avoid – and now they are petulantly refusing to ratify a trade deal which it took a year to negotiate.

“As Brits, we traditionally honour our obligations but you have to ask yourself why are we continuing to pay this Danegeld to people who only treat us with open contempt in return?” Last week Mr Johnson came under renewed pressure from Arlene Foster, the Democratic Unionist Party leader, to tear up the “intolerable” protocol which has been blamed for causing major disruption due to added red tape and checks between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Mr Johnson said there was a need for “symmetry and balance” to post-Brexit trade in Northern Ireland.

He added that unionists as well as nationalists – who favour the protocol because it ensures closer ties with the Republic of Ireland – needed to support it”. He said: “There has got to be east

‘Since we left the transition period the European Union’s attitude has been increasingly bellicose’

west consent to what is going on, as well as north-south. We want to make sure that is built into that.”

That came as Simon Coveney, Ireland’s foreign minister, was accused of missing “the whole point of Brexit” by a BBC interviewer.

It came after he complained that the UK was trying to strike a trade deal alone with the US.

Pressed on Britain’s desire to reach a trade agreement with the US, Mr Coveney insisted on the need for a multilateral deal that did not leave out the EU and Ireland.

He told the Today programme on BBC Radio 4: “In my view, the transAtlantic relationship, involving Britain, should be a powerful one economically and globally.”

However, Martha Kearney, the presenter, replied: “Well that may be your view, and Ireland is still in the European Union, but wasn’t that the whole point of Brexit?

“That the UK should be able to negotiate its own trade deals?”

Earlier, in an interview with The Times newspaper, Mr Coveney said: “This idea that Britain can get there first is narrow-minded thinking, frankly.

“It’s a perverse nationalism when actually Britain and the EU should work together as partners.”