Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson acknowledged this Thursday that it would be difficult for him to vote on a framework agreement negotiated by successor Rishi Sunak with the European Union on Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade status.
“When I look at the deal we have now, I certainly have mixed feelings,” he said in a speech at the 2023 Global Soft Power Summit in London.
Johnson said he understands “why so many people are drawn to compromise” and hopes Unionist Democratic Party (DUP) leader Geoffrey Donaldson “finds a way to reconcile himself and the party with this outcome.”
However, the ruling that Northern Ireland is still too subject to European rules and laws defined in Brussels will require products made in this British province to comply with European Union (EU) rules.
“We must clearly understand what is really happening here. This is not about Britain regaining control. (…) This is the gracious inflexibility of the EU, allowing us to do what we want in our own country, not according to our laws, but according to theirs, ”he criticized.
According to Johnson, this agreement “acts as an anchor for the divergence that is the goal of Brexit,” the UK’s exit from the European Union, for which he believed that “there is no justification if something is not done in the other.”
“It will be very difficult for me to vote for something, because I myself believe that we should have done something else,” he stressed.
If the deal is blocked by the DUPD, the former prime minister argues that the British government should pass legislation introduced in Parliament when he was in office to nullify parts of the Brexit deal.
Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented a framework agreement at Windsor on Monday that removes customs controls for goods moving between the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, although it remains for goods bound for the Republic of Ireland. .
The agreement aims to address problems caused by the Northern Ireland Protocol, part of the United Kingdom’s Withdrawal from the European Union (EU) Agreement, which linked the British province to the European single market.
This text was found to be a solution to avoid the physical land border between a British province and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, in order to comply with the 1998 peace accords.
Ratification does not require a vote, but Sunak is under pressure to be debated and voted on in Parliament.
In his speech, Boris Johnson admitted that he made mistakes in negotiating the agreement because he thought “these controls are not going to be heavy because not many fall into this category – most of the assets are in Northern Ireland.”
“It’s all my fault, I take full responsibility,” he muttered.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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