[ad_1]
Boris Johnson will ask MPs on Monday to vote for legislative clauses that allow ministers to breach the Brexit withdrawal agreement, despite warnings that the move could ruin trade talks with the European Union.
The House of Lords removed the clauses from the Internal Market Bill, but Environment Secretary George Eustice said MPs should restore them.
He told Sky News that the clauses were important as an insurance policy for Britain, particularly if current negotiations end without a deal.
“When the joint UK-EU committee process fails to clarify how the Northern Ireland protocol should be interpreted, it is absolutely crucial that the UK government has the powers to provide legal clarity,” he said.
The British government has blamed Brussels for the stalemate in which negotiations stopped over the weekend, stating that the EU tabled new demands last week; a statement that the European side has dismissed as false.
Johnson is scheduled to speak with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday night to assess the progress of the talks that resumed in Brussels on Sunday.
Last days
Eustice said the talks were now in their final days and the prime minister would soon have to decide whether a deal is possible or whether the UK should prepare to end the transition period without it.
“If the environment heats up again and really great progress is made and it’s just a matter of ordering the details well, you can always find more time, you can always extend. But I think that unless we can resolve these fundamental divergences right now, then we will have to take a position in the next few days, “he told the BBC.
Johnson’s hour-long call with Ms Von der Leyen on Saturday did not resolve pending disputes over fishing, a level playing field guarantees and how to enforce the deal. On fishing, Mr. Eustice said he saw a clear space for compromise.
“There are precedents in the fisheries negotiations. For example, we do this quite regularly with the mackerel negotiations in the North Sea to have a multi-year agreement. Maybe for three years where there is an understanding around a particular level of access and an understanding around exchange agreements.
“And you check the science to observe the health of the population every year. There is a precedent for that. We are open to that type of agreement. However, what we cannot do is have a position where there is some kind of treaty obligation on access in the long term or in perpetuity, ”he said.
Repercussions
Although Johnson has predicted that Britain will prosper without a trade deal with the EU, former Prime Minister Gordon Brown said failure to reach an agreement would have repercussions beyond the country’s relationship with Europe.
“We would be in an economic war with Europe that would cost us dearly. Food, drugs and everything else would be difficult for us to bring into the country without tariffs and robberies. But we would also be in an economic war with the United States, because there would be no possibility of a trade agreement with the United States, ”he told Sky News.
Boris Johnson is going to end up as the most isolated prime minister in history in peacetime with no friends around the world, because he has simply chosen a path of confrontation when everyone knows that it is in Britain’s economic interest, perhaps not the ideological interest of Brexit supporters. – get a deal and get a deal now. ”
[ad_2]