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Dominic Raab has moved to quell US President-elect Joe Biden’s fears about Northern Ireland and a no-deal Brexit, saying he will “listen very carefully” to the concerns of US Democrats, but said the risk to the Good Friday deal comes from the EU. .
Biden, who has Irish roots, has openly expressed the UK’s plans to quash parts of the EU withdrawal agreement if no deal is reached with the bloc.
The House of Lords is expected to vote this week to remove parts of the domestic markets bill that would violate international law by removing some of the commitments from the deal, something Labor has challenged the government to grant.
During the campaign, Biden said that “any trade agreement between the US and the UK must depend on respecting the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border.”
Questions and answers
What is the UK Internal Market Law?
The Internal Market Bill aims to enforce compatible rules and regulations with regard to trade in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Some rules, for example around food safety or air quality, which were previously established through EU agreements, will now be controlled by decentralized administrations or Westminster. The internal market bill insists that decentralized administrations must accept goods and services from all nations of the UK, even if their standards differ locally.
This, the government says, is in part to ensure that international traders have access to the UK as a whole, relying on the standards and rules to be consistent.
The Scottish government has criticized it as a Westminster “takeover”, and the Welsh government has expressed fear that it will lead to a race to the bottom. If one of the countries that make up the United Kingdom lowers its standards, for example, on the import of chlorinated chicken, the other three nations will have to accept chlorinated chicken as well.
It has become even more controversial because one of its main goals is to empower ministers to pass regulations even if they are contrary to the withdrawal agreement reached with the EU under the Northern Ireland protocol.
The text does not hide its intention, affirming that the powers contained in the bill “have effect without prejudice to any relevant international or national law with which they may be incompatible or incompatible.”
The bill passed its first hurdle in parliament by 77 votes, despite rebellion from some Conservative MPs.
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The UK Foreign Secretary said he was confident diplomats could smooth things over in Washington. “I am confident that we will navigate all these issues in a sensible and correct way,” he told the BBC’s The Andrew Marr Show.
“We listen very carefully to the concerns of our American friends. Particularly in the Irish Hill lobby they feel very committed to the Good Friday deal, we understand that. But it is not the UK that is putting it at risk, it is the EU ”.
Biden had previously called Boris Johnson the “physical and emotional clone of Donald Trump” and allies in the new Democratic administration have been scathing towards the UK prime minister.
Tommy Vietor, Barack Obama’s former national security spokesman, commenting on the Prime Minister’s congratulatory message to Biden, tweeted that Johnson was a “shapeshifting jerk” and added: “We will never forget his racist remarks about Obama and his slavish devotion to Trump. ” “
Raab was also pressed on whether he believed there had been irregularities in the US voting system, after he tweeted “some of the processes are still going on” in his congratulatory message to Biden.
“They are not going to drag me into the election campaign or the immediate aftermath,” he told Sky’s Sophy Ridge. “We want to avoid being sucked into the internal politics of the United States, but it is now very clear in our opinion that there is a definitive result.
“There may be some claims of wrongdoing, but we have always said that we have full faith in the checks and balances of the American system to achieve a clear result, and they have done so now.”
When asked repeatedly whether all votes should be counted in an election, Raab said “in principle, yes, of course,” but said he did not want to be involved in the controversies in the United States.
“We really don’t want to get involved in the push and pull, the controversies, the claims, the counterclaims, either in the election or immediately after, and that is, we respect the rights of Americans to choose for themselves and we respect the controls and balances of the American system that will produce, as they have, a clear result. “
When asked if he was feeding the conspirators in his congratulatory tweet, Raab said: “No, I think that’s a very partisan bias … Frankly, there are those who want to criticize the UK right now, whatever happens. , on whatever to say and what this government says, but I’m going to focus on the bottom line.
“People complain about interference in our politics here. I think it is correct to act with care and sensitivity, particularly after what was clearly a very close election, much closer than what the media or experts expected, and it has been controversial in all kinds of ways. . “
