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The Government also plans to publish the Internal Market Bill this week to formalize trade rules within the British Isles after the end of the transition period so that the UK can sign trade deals.
Sections of the bill will nullify key elements of the withdrawal agreement, removing the legal force from certain aspects of the agreement, such as state aid and Northern Ireland customs, it was stated late Sunday.
The move would undermine the Northern Ireland protocol that was signed last October to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, according to The Financial Times.
Michel Barnier said last week that a “precise implementation” of the agreement was crucial to the success of the negotiations.
On Sunday, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said that the Brexit negotiations faced a “reckoning moment” this week, as he insisted the UK would not “haggle” over state aid issues and fishing.
Raab said that the negotiations had “been reduced to two pending points of contention”, and that Brussels refused to budge on state aid and fisheries.
He will say: “As a government we are preparing, at our borders and in our ports, to be prepared for it. We will have full control over our laws, our rules and our fishing waters.”
“We will have the freedom to make trade agreements with every country in the world. And as a result, we will prosper enormously. Of course, we will always be ready to talk to our friends in the EU even under these circumstances.
“We will be prepared to find reasonable accommodations on practical matters such as flights, trucking or scientific cooperation, if the EU wants to do so.”
“Our door will never close and we will trade as friends and partners, but without a free trade agreement.”
He will add: “There is still an agreement to be reached … Even at this late stage, if the EU is ready to rethink its current positions and accept this, I will be delighted.
“However, we cannot and will not compromise the fundamentals of what it means to be an independent country to achieve this.”
On Sunday night, David Jones, vice chair of the Conservative MEPs European Research Group, supported Johnson’s intervention, saying The Telegraph: “We should be prepared to walk away and trade on WTO terms.”
