The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator has warned that Brussels will not give in to threats or blackmail, as the furious row over the Northern Irish border took a step closer towards sparking a trade war.
Maros Sefcovic in effect accused Boris Johnson of lying about the consequences of EU withdrawal, declaring that it was time for “honesty” about the problems created by the form of hard Brexit chosen by the UK government.
Insisting that the 27-nation bloc was united in rejecting British demands to rewrite the controversial Northern Ireland protocol, he sent a stark message to London: “We in the EU never work with threats, we never work with blackmail, we try to work with constructive engagement and that is what I am pleading for.”
The European Commission vice-president was speaking after foreign secretary Liz Truss told him that Britain would have “no choice” but to take unilateral action unless Brussels submitted to its demand for fresh concessions on the protocol, which has effectively created a customs border between Northern Ireland and the British mainland.
Her comments in crunch phone talks with Mr Sefcovic set the scene for the publication within days of legislation to override the protocol, which was signed by Mr Johnson in 2020 with the aim of keeping the Irish border open after Brexit.
Voicing her “regret” at the EU’s rejection of British demands to revise Mr Sefcovic’s negotiating mandate, the foreign secretary said that “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”.
Her ultimatum came hours after attorney general Suella Braverman revealed she had received legal advice that it would be lawful to tear up parts of the protocol because of the “disproportionate and unreasonable” way in which the UK believes it has been implemented by Brussels.
Speaking on BBC Question Time on Thursday night, Ms Braverman said action over the protocol is becoming "painfully, apparently necessary".
Meanwhile, former Brexit minister Lord Frost, writing in the Telegraph, said that the government has "no option" now but to rip up "part or all of the protocol". He urged Mr Johnson to act, even if it leads to "confrontation" with the bloc.
Downing Street acknowledged that the situation was “very serious” but insisted that no decision on action had yet been taken. Talks are understood to be continuing at an official level over the coming days.
But Mr Sefcovic said the “likelihood” was now that the UK government would produce a new version of the Internal Market Bill, which provoked a deep rift between London and Brussels in 2020 after ministers admitted its provisions to lift customs checks would breach international law.
And a senior Downing Street source said that the cabinet was united around the position that “something needs to be done” as the EU position appeared to be hardening.
“You never know what the EU are going to come back with,” said the source. “But they set their position out today, and we don’t have any signals that that is going to change.”
Mr Johnson himself indicated that the government felt impelled to act by the refusal of the unionist DUP to enter into a power-sharing administration with Sinn Fein so long as the protocol remains in its current form – a situation he suggested was putting the Good Friday Agreement at risk.
“It’s clear that the unionist community won’t accept the protocol,” said the prime minister. “That’s obvious from what’s happened. We’ve got to fix it.”
Any unilateral breach of the protocol by the UK could eventually lead to a trade war with Europe, allowing Brussels to suspend all or part of the zero-tariff trade deal signed in 2020.
The former head of the government legal department, Sir Jonathan Jones QC, who quit over the Internal Market Bill, warned that introducing the necessary legislation to override the protocol would be “seriously problematic”.
“It feels like a rerun of what happened two years ago when the government was proposing to break international law,” he said.
“We know that the EU will be very cross if that happens, and I think it’s understandable that they would be cross, because this would be a unilateral act, and it would very severely damage the relationship we will continue to need with the EU post-Brexit.”
But legislation could take as long as a year to go through parliament, with stiff opposition expected in the House of Lords, and government sources made clear that negotiations could continue throughout that time to try to avert a hugely expensive breakdown in trade relations.
Mr Sefcovic expressed “serious concern” over the impasse, warning it would be “unacceptable” for the UK to walk away from the international treaty signed by Mr Johnson.
He warned that the ambitions set out by the PM in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech for further UK divergence from EU standards and regulations would lead to “more complications, more difficulties, more checks” on goods crossing the border.
Decrying a lack of “political will” on the British side to engage with proposed solutions to the trade disruption, the commission vice-president said: “Honesty about what the UK signed up to is needed. Honesty that the EU cannot solve all the problems created by Brexit and the type of Brexit chosen by the UK.
“We will not renegotiate the protocol, and the EU is united in this position. Unilateral action effectively disapplying the protocol is not the solution.”
After being briefed by Mr Sefcovic on his talks with Ms Truss, Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said Dublin was in agreement with the rejection of “UK government threats of unilateral action and breach of international law”.
“The way forward is partnership, dialogue and genuine negotiation, not threats and raising tension,” said Mr Coveney.
Ms Truss ratcheted up tensions over the protocol on Tuesday, with a statement warning that proposals set out by the EU to ease the friction in trade would in fact “take us backwards”.
But Mr Sefcovic told her on Thursday that there was “no room” for further concessions or for a change in his negotiating mandate, which must be agreed by all 27 EU member states.
Ms Truss said that the protocol was causing “unacceptable disruption to trade” and had created “a two-tier system where people in Northern Ireland weren’t being treated the same as everyone else in the UK”.
Calling for “more pragmatism” from the commission, she said that the issues could be resolved, while still protecting the EU single market, by implementing UK proposals for goods destined for Northern Ireland to be sent through a light-touch “green channel” at customs, with close checks reserved for those heading to the Republic.
But Mr Sefcovic said that taking unilateral action to disapply an international treaty would undermine trust between the EU and the UK, and that it would compromise efforts to protect the Good Friday Agreement.
“The EU and the UK are partners facing the same global challenges, where upholding the rule of law and living up to international obligations is a necessity,” he said. “Working side by side in a constructive manner is of utmost importance.”
