Liz Truss defends Northern Ireland protocol bill

Her comments came as Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney said the UK Government’s new legislation blatantly broke international law. 

The bill, tabled in the Commons on Monday evening, would allow ministers in Whitehall to unilaterally change agreed procedures on customs, food safety, VAT changes, the role of the European Court of Justice, and the application of EU regulations. 

If enacted it would, ultimately, end checks on most goods between Britain and Northern Ireland. 

On Monday, Boris Johnson insisted the changes in the legislation were “relatively trivial,” but Brussels, Dublin and the majority of Stormont’s MLAs disagree. 

The EU is expected to launch legal action tomorrow.

Mr Coveney told the BBC’s Good Morning Ulster programme: “What the British Government is proposing to do is dismantle the protocol, which is international law, which was carefully put together over a number of years through painstaking negotiation involving this British Prime Minister to solve or to manage the disruption of Brexit on the island of Ireland as best we could.

“The British Government is now looking to undermine all of that work for whatever political reason.

“But it is being warned from Ireland, from all EU capitals, from the European Commission, from the White House, all of Britain’s friends are effectively saying please don’t do this.

“A majority of people in Northern Ireland, where 52 of the 90 MLAs wrote to the Prime Minister yesterday to say please don’t do this.

“Business leaders in Northern Ireland and business leaders in the UK have said please don’t do this.

“It is going to destabilise what is already a difficult situation and instead focus on negotiations with the EU who want to compromise and want to respond to unionist concerns.”

He later repeated claims made by Taoiseach Micheál Martin who said last week that it would be a “new low” for British-Irish relations.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “I think this is not consistent with international law and the British government’s obligations under international law and I think that will be shown in time.

“But more concerningly this, I think, is really a new low in in British-Irish relations, certainly, I think in the last 25 years or so.”

He added: “So this is, unfortunately, if the British government proceeds with this course of action, and turns this draft legislation into law in the months ahead, effectively what they will be doing is collapsing the protocol.

“What that means from an Irish perspective is that all of the issues that we spent years negotiating with the British government, including this British government, in order to safeguard against the severe disruption of Brexit on the island of Ireland, north and south will of course, be called into question all over again.”

Ms Truss said the government had to take action because of the stalemate at Stormont.

The DUP has so far refused to take their place in the power-sharing government because of their opposition to the existing protocol. 

She told the BBC Good Morning Ulster programme: “The reason that we feel that we absolutely had to take action is because of the situation in Northern Ireland.

“The fact is that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is being undermined.

"We haven’t seen an Executive formed since February, we have seen east-west trade diminished, trade diverted to north-south.

"We’ve also seen the people of Northern Ireland not able to benefit from tax breaks.

“These are all issues that we need to sort out. Our preference is to sort them out with the EU, but as yet the EU are not agreeing to change the text of the protocol.”

She added: “I think it’s important to note that issues like customs, issues like tax, are baked into the text of the protocol. That is why we are taking action.

"We are doing so in a reasonable way that continues to protect the EU single market.

“I think the important point, and this is what the Prime Minister was driving at, is that it won’t make the EU any worse off. There is simply no reason for us to have a war of words about this, this is very much reasonable action we are taking.”

The Foreign Secretary later told Times Radio there was "absolutely no reason why the EU should react in a negative way to what we’re doing.”

Under the new legislation, the government would create a 'green lane' of fewer checks for those selling goods heading for Northern Ireland and a 'red lane' with existing checks for goods destined for EU countries.

Firms in Great Britain exporting to Northern Ireland would be able to choose between meeting EU or UK standards on regulation.

Further measures include bringing Northern Ireland’s tax break and spending policies into line with the rest of the UK, and changing oversight of trade disputes so that they are resolved by independent arbitration rather than the European court of justice.

In a legal summary released alongside the bill, the government insisted it had not broken international law: “This is a genuinely exceptional situation and it is only in the challenging, complex and unique circumstances of Northern Ireland that the government has, reluctantly, decided to introduce legislative measures which, on entry into force, envisage the non-performance of certain obligations.

“It is the government’s position that in light of the state of necessity, any such non-performance of its obligations contained in the withdrawal agreement and/or the protocol as a result of the planned legislative measures would be justified as a matter of international law.”

The bill could struggle to get through parliament, with swathes of Tory MPs and Lords joining opposition party politicians to vote it down.