Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis pictured on Sunday
(Picture: PA)Brussels on Monday warned the UK to “dial down the rhetoric” insisting it will not renegotiate the post-Brexit trade deal for Northern Ireland amid concerns that Britain could be preparing to unilaterally rip up the deal.
The Democratic Unionist Party has said it will refuse to join a new executive in Northern Ireland following last week’s Stormont elections until the Northern Ireland Protocol, which introduced checks on some goods between Great Britain and the region, is changed.
Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis was on Monday in Belfast for talks with political leaders aimed at restoring the Assembly which was collapsed by the DUP in February.
But with some more hawkish Cabinet ministers pushing for the UK to scrap the Protocol now, European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic made it clear that while Brussels was ready for fresh talks on resolving the stalemate, any solution would need to be found within the framework of the existing treaty.
“We have already shown a lot of flexibility by proposing impactful, durable solutions and we stand ready to continue discussions.
“We need the UK Government to dial down the rhetoric, be honest about the deal they signed and agree to find solutions within its framework. The UK should show genuine determination and good faith to make the Protocol work, rather than looking for ways to erode it,” he said.
While the Government is not now expected to introduce a bill scrapping the Protocol in Tuesday’s Queen’s Speech, one government source described the EU’s admission that it won’t get a new mandate to renegotiate the Protocol as “alarming”, adding that the current proposals on the table from Brussels don’t address the issues in Northern Ireland.
The DUP says the new trade border in the Irish Sea is hurting business in the region and undermines links between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
With nationalist Sinn Fein becoming the biggest party at Stormont for the first time in the region’s history, giving it the right to choose Northern Ireland’s first minister, unionists also fear they could soon face a fight to prevent a border poll on the unification of Ireland.
Universities minister Michelle Donelan insisted on Monday that the Government’s priority was to find “a workable solution” but added that nothing was off the table when questioned on whether the UK could take unilateral action to suspend or scrap the protocol. “We have been really clear — our priority is to resolve the issues around the protocol,” she said.
But EU ambassador to the UK Joao Vale de Almeida added on BBC Radio 4’s Today show: “Let’s be clear we are not ready to renegotiate an international treaty we signed just a couple of years ago.”
