Legislation that would allow the British government to bypass parts of the Brexit agreement with the European Union is “legal,” Minister Brandon Lewis said today.
The government will pass the legislation on Monday, Lewis said in an interview with Sky News, as reported by Bloomberg.
The bill was due to be unveiled last week, but last-minute changes by senior ministers, concerns that it violates international law and consultations with pro-Brexit lawmakers have delayed.
“We as a government will outline our legal position and we will be very clear about why this is legal,” said Lewis, the foreign minister for Northern Ireland. “People will see that what we promise solves the key issues of the protocol that do not work.”
The Boris Johnson government has long pushed for changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, an agreement that keeps the region in the EU single market while creating a customs border with the rest of the United Kingdom. The government hopes the bill will be passed by the UK House of Commons before Parliament’s recess in late July.
Johnson is fighting for his political survival after surviving a marginal vote of no confidence within his party. He is still plagued by the partygate scandal, becoming the first prime minister to break the law during his tenure.
Any attempt to make unilateral changes to the protocol will provoke the wrath of the EU, which is likely to react by thawing procedures through which it could impose trade or economic sanctions on the UK. The plan to change the protocol has angered EU member states, as well as high-ranking US politicians, who have said that peace and stability in Northern Ireland should not be jeopardized.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Cowney said his British counterpart, Liz Tras, had made no effort to seek a compromise in the dispute, telling the Irish Sunday Independent that he appeared to be seeking Johnson’s seat.
Cowney also told the paper that the disagreement over the protocol should not be used “within the Conservative Party to build support for a possible leadership” because Ireland “is the collateral loss of this political game”.
Source: Capital
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