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Despite the rebellion: Johnson’s law wins a majority in the lower house
Brussels and London are currently heading for a tough break. Despite all the warnings, a clear majority in the British House of Commons voted in favor of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s controversial internal market law.
340 of the MPs voted Monday night in favor of the law with which Johnson wants to change parts of the current Brexit agreement. 263 voted against. An opposition motion to end the law had previously been rejected by a majority.
Premier Johnson during the debate in the House of Commons. Image: keystone
The vote is a barometer of the state of mind: the debate on the bill will continue in the next few days and the decisive vote will not take place for another week. After that, the law still needs to pass in the House of Lords.
But already on Monday the emotions in parliament were boiling: “What incompetence! What a failed government! For example, the member of the opposition Labor Party, Ed Miliband, outraged a head of government who shook his head. There is only one person responsible for all of this: Johnson himself.
The latter defended his law in the debate, however, once again as a necessary “safety net” to protect the relationship between Northern Ireland and the rest of Great Britain. Because, according to his account, the EU threatened, among other things, to stop the flow of goods between Ireland and Northern Ireland by stopping imports of British goods. And the EU “has not yet taken this revolver off the table.”
In an initial reaction from the British media, the BBC broadcaster stated on its website that the corona pandemic had dominated the news this year, but that Brexit was “back on the agenda.”
The Telegraph, in turn, warned Johnson that he was facing “an entirely new Brexit battle” with the law. And The Guardian headlined that Johnson won the vote on a controversial law that “will violate international law.”
Former prime ministers distance themselves
Johnson has an 80-vote majority in the House of Commons, his ruling faction had a 77-vote majority in the Monday night vote, despite several prominent party members, including former Conservative Prime Ministers David Cameron and John Major clearly disagreed with her. They had distanced themselves from the law.
With the Internal Market Law, the Prime Minister wants to change the exit treaty agreed with the European Union in 2019 in essential points. Specifically, these are special rules for British Northern Ireland, which are intended to avoid a hard border with the EU state Ireland and further hostilities there.
For the EU, Johnson’s move is a violation of the law. Brussels therefore asked London to surrender at the end of September. Critics fear that the proposed law could be the fatal blow to the trade agreement that will regulate future economic relations. Once the transition phase of Brexit is over, there is a risk of a break with tariffs and high no-contract trade barriers. (sda / dpa)
