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Boris Johnson is facing a stiff defeat in the House of Lords this week over controversial Brexit legislation that will violate international law, setting him up for a showdown with President-elect Joe Biden.
The peers will vote on Monday to remove clauses from the controversial domestic market bill that the government has admitted could break its commitments in the Brexit withdrawal agreement in a “very specific and limited way.”
While ministers have argued that the legislation is vital to secure intra-UK trade, opponents have said it risks violating the terms of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the conflict on the island of Ireland. something about which Biden has expressed deep concern.
The bill has been met with widespread condemnation from the EU and Britain’s allies, as well as conservative peers, including former Conservative party leader Michael Howard, who is expected to vote against the legislation. Last month, his peers defeated the government with a majority of 226 who expressed “regret” for the bill.
Parliamentary officials predicted the government “will lose a lot tomorrow [Monday] unless they come up with something to ease the pain of the debate. “But one individual said it was” highly unlikely “that the government would withdraw the clauses on Monday.
Mr Biden criticized the internal market legislation in September, stating that the Good Friday peace agreement cannot “become a victim of Brexit.” The president-elect is expected to make this point again during his first call with the UK prime minister.
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday that Britain will not violate the historic agreement, adding that it has reassured leading figures in the Democratic Party.
“We have been very clear that we are absolutely committed to respecting the Good Friday Agreement, but our argument is, and it was good to have the opportunity when I was in Washington to explain, it is the EU that has pushed that with the approach it has taken,” he told the BBC.
Charlie Falconer, the shadow attorney general for Labor, said it was “not too late” for the government to “get back on the side of the law before further damage was done to our country’s reputation.”
“We always said that the UK would pay a terrible price for breaking with the rule of law, and now, almost immediately after, we can see that price is being paid by government actions being denounced by the US government,” he said. .
The internal market legislation will return to the House of Commons in early December when Johnson will have to decide whether to reinsert the controversial clauses into the bill.
A poster shows support for Joe Biden in his ancestral hometown of Ballina in County Mayo © Paul Faith / AFP
High-level figures in Westminster believe that the combined pressure from Biden and the “cover of a Brexit deal” will be used to leave the legislation unchanged. Intense negotiations with the EU start again on Monday, and experts believe that “the next 10 days will be crucial” for a trade deal.
A parliamentary official noted that “in early December, the context could have changed a bit. It is a political trial for number 10 ”.
However, government experts said it was “unlikely” that the contentious clauses would be left out of the bill. One minister said: “The pro-union clauses in the IM bill are popular with the courts. Removing those clauses would risk causing great unrest, particularly among those who vigorously defended the bill in the first place. “
Meanwhile, Johnson welcomed Biden’s victory and said the UK and the US can work closely together on climate change, free speech and democracy promotion, despite their differences over Brexit.
“There is much more that unites the government of this country and the government of Washington at any time, at any stage, than what divides us. We have common values. We have common interests. We have a common global perspective, ”said the prime minister.
