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Boris Johnson has urged Conservative MPs to back his plan to quash part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.
In a Zoom call with about 250 of them, he said the party should not go back to “miserable fights” for Europe.
The EU has warned the UK that it could face legal action if it does not get rid of controversial elements of the Internal Market Act before the end of the month.
And a Conservative MP has proposed an amendment to the bill, which would affect trade between Britain and Northern Ireland.
Meanwhile, the European Parliament has threatened to ruin any trade deal between the UK and the EU if the bill becomes UK law.
The two parties have less than five weeks to reach an agreement before Johnson’s October 15 deadline, after which he says he is ready to “walk away.”
Informal talks will resume on Monday and the next official round of talks, the ninth since March, will begin in Brussels on September 28.
The internal market bill, which will be formally debated in the House of Commons for the first time on Monday, addresses the Northern Ireland Protocol, the part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement designed to prevent a firm border from returning to the island of Ireland.
If signed into law, it would give UK ministers powers to modify or “waive” the rules relating to the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland which will come into effect on 1 January, if the UK and the EU cannot reach a trade agreement.
The EU says the planned changes must be scrapped or risk jeopardizing trade talks between the UK and the EU.
But the government has rejected this demand, arguing that the measures in the bill are necessary to protect the integrity of the United Kingdom and the peace process in Northern Ireland.
In his Zoom call with MPs on Friday, the prime minister did not answer questions and a bad signal meant that video and audio connections were lost for several minutes.
He called for “overwhelming support” for the bill, calling it “absolutely vital” to “prevent a foreign or international body from having the power to divide our country.”
Johnson added that he would not tolerate “the threat of a border in the Irish Sea.”
But he said there is still a “very good chance” that the UK and the EU will reach an agreement in mid-October similar to the one previously agreed between the EU and Canada, which removed most but not all tariffs on goods.
The BBC’s chief political correspondent, Vicki Young, said Tory MPs were “looking for a sign of compromise” from Johnson, as they “simply cannot believe the government is prepared to violate international law,” but the first minister “faced”. .
‘Serious misunderstanding’
In a Daily Telegraph column, Johnson defended the government’s plans to nullify parts of the Withdrawal Agreement.
He accused the EU of adopting an “extreme” interpretation of the Northern Ireland Protocol to impose “a large-scale trade border in the Irish Sea” that could stop the transport of food from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
“I have to say that we never seriously believed that the EU would be willing to use a treaty, negotiated in good faith, to block a part of the UK, to cut it off,” he said.
The prime minister said it has become clear that there may be a “serious misunderstanding” between the UK and the EU about the Withdrawal Agreement.
He said the UK must be protected from what it called an EU “disaster” to “divide our country” and “endanger peace and stability in Northern Ireland.”
‘A harmful act’
Conservative supporter Sir Bob Neill, who chairs the Commons Justice Committee, said Zoom’s call from the prime minister did not reassure him.
He is submitting an amendment to the bill to try to force a separate parliamentary vote on any changes to the Withdrawal Agreement.
“I think it is a potentially damaging act for this country, it would damage our reputation and I think it will be more difficult to reach trade agreements in the future,” he said.
Around the same time as the prime minister was speaking, the European Parliament announced that it would “under no circumstances ratify” any trade agreement reached between the UK and the EU if the “UK authorities violate or threaten to violate” the Withdrawal Agreement.
Northern Ireland’s Secretary, Brandon Lewis, has admitted that parts of the bill, which would go against a treaty signed by the UK and the EU, “would violate international law in a very specific and limited way.”
There is concern about this within the Conservative Party, with former leaders Theresa May, Lord Howard and Sir John Major urging Johnson to think again.
