Tuesday 17 May 2022 11:04 PM EU threatens all-out trade war against the UK after Liz Truss rewrites Brexit ... trends now
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Brussels last night threatened an all-out trade war against the UK after Liz Truss outlined plans to rewrite parts of the Brexit deal to protect the Northern Ireland peace process.
In a strongly-worded statement, EU vice-president Maros Sefcovic warned that the union would 'respond with all measures at its disposal' if the UK legislates to override the Protocol.
Miss Truss yesterday told MPs it was now vital to change the arrangement, which is widely blamed for driving a wedge between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
Liz Truss, pictured on Tuesday, also said she was 'open' to a deal but that 18 months of talks with Brussels had failed to solve the problem
'The issue with the Protocol is that although we entered into it in good faith, it has not operated as we foresaw, and it is causing the real problems that we see in Northern Ireland today,' she told MPs.
She said the Government would bring forward a new law this summer that would scrap EU checks on British goods heading to the Province provided they are not destined to go on to the Irish Republic.
The legislation will also introduce fines for firms caught smuggling goods into the single market by the back door.
And it will end the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice in trade disputes and give Chancellor Rishi Sunak unfettered powers to vary tax rates in the Province.
The Foreign Secretary said the Protocol, which is part of the Brexit deal, was placing the Good Friday Agreement 'under strain' – and said the Government's 'first priority' had to be to protect the peace process.
Boris Johnson moved to calm fears of a trade war by insisting the UK still wanted a negotiated settlement with Brussels.
'Let's fix it,' he said. 'We don't want to nix it, we want to fix it and we want to work with our EU partners to do it.'
Pro Europe Brexit protesters in Parliament Square on May 11. In a strongly-worded statement, EU vice-president Maros Sefcovic warned that the union would 'respond with all measures at its disposal' if the UK legislates to override the Protocol
Miss Truss also said she was 'open' to a deal but that 18 months of talks with Brussels had failed to solve the problem.
She told MPs that the new legislation would be brought forward 'in parallel' with negotiations with the EU.
Ireland's foreign affairs minister, Simon Coveney, said the unilateral action from the UK was 'damaging to trust'.
Mr Sefcovic
