Comply with the protests of the five surviving predecessors



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Prime Minister Boris Johnson is unfamiliar with the taunts of people from various branches of British politics.

Now he has also gotten the country’s five current prime ministers to take the magazine by mouth in the heated Brexit dispute that is not over yet.

In recent days, Theresa May, David Cameron, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have warned against the government’s latest turnaround.

The first three are all from the Conservative Party and thus Boris Johnson’s party partners, while Blair and Brown are former prime ministers of the Labor Party.

Five former prime ministers have been involved in the heated debate: David Cameron, John Major, Gordon Brown (center), Theresa May and Tony Blair. Photo: NTB scanpix. Editing: Dagsavisen.

They all have in common that they are now drawing a red line on what is about to happen with the Brexit process.

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Deadline

Brexit is far from a buried problem, despite the UK leaving the EU on January 31 this year. This was carried out on the basis of an opt-out agreement (“divorce agreement”) agreed between the EU and the UK in 2019. However, a transition period is still underway, expiring at the end of this year. . During this period, the EU and the UK must agree to an agreement for future trade relations.

Now there are only a few weeks left until the deadline for the EU-UK deal, unless it ends with a Brexit with no deal regulating the future trade relationship.

Storm

The fiery Brexit dispute escalated last week, when the British government introduced a bill that runs counter to the withdrawal agreement already signed between the UK and the EU, the agreement Boris Johnson himself signed in January and described as a fantastic moment.

The dispute concerns the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, an important part of the withdrawal agreement reached between the EU and the UK. Its aim is to avoid the so-called hard border between Ireland, which is a member of the EU, and Northern Ireland, which is outside the EU because it belongs to the British Union. A flexible border is seen as important to maintaining the fragile peace after the Northern Ireland conflict.

The Johnson government has introduced a bill that, if passed, would give the UK government the authority to modify and override the agreed rules on the transfer of property between Northern Ireland and the UK at large, should do not do it. there will be some agreement on the future business relationship.

The government believes this is important to ensure smooth access for goods to be transported across the Irish Sea from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK.

This is what has created a storm both in the EU and among many British politicians. The EU has indicated that the withdrawal agreement between the EU and the UK is binding under international law. The British government has even admitted that plans to reinterpret the content of the Northern Ireland Protocol will violate international law.

The bill is now being examined by the British Parliament.

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– Ashamed of yourself

On Monday, David Cameron became the fifth former prime minister to take the magazine by mouth, Sky News reports.

– Breaking an international contractual obligation is the absolute, absolute last thing one should consider. It should be an absolute last resort. So I am concerned about what has been proposed, Cameron told Sky.

The former Conservative prime minister stresses that it is not yet known whether the bill will pass in the British Parliament and, if so, whether it will ever need to be passed.

Cameron says that so far he has chosen not to comment, because he is currently at a crucial stage in the negotiations on a future trade deal between the EU and the UK.

On Sunday, the two former Prime Ministers Tony Blair (Labor) and John Major (Conservatives) joined forces to criticize the government. The two call the proposal “irresponsible, fundamentally wrong and dangerous in practice” in a Sunday Times publication.

– It calls into question all the credibility of our country, believe the two former prime ministers, and point out that the government is willing to break an international agreement.

– The government is ashamed of itself and shames the entire nation, they both believe.

They hope that Parliament will stop the plans now.

Former Labor Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Theresa May have also criticized the government. May was prime minister before Boris Johnson took office, and was even in the midst of Brexit’s tug of war for three years, until she resigned last year.

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Hard nut

Opposition to the bill is now also growing among Conservative Party members of parliament, writes The Guardian. The EU has asked the British government to withdraw the proposal.

The question of how Brexit should handle Northern Ireland has always been a tough nut to crack. According to the Northern Ireland Protocol in the agreement, there will be no control of goods at the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, as Northern Ireland will continue to comply with EU rules in the area even after 31 December this year. This will mean that there will be control of some goods shipped to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

But it is not entirely clear what this would mean exactly, but the agreement had to be somewhat vague to be put into practice, notes BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg.

– There has always been a vagueness there. Northern Ireland was promised full access to the rest of the UK, but at the same time they must follow EU rules. But that is a contradiction in terms. There was a vagueness to the deal, and when it had to adjust to reality, there had to be problems, Kuenssberg says on the Newscast podcast.

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