LONDON (Reuters) – Britain will have no choice but to take action unless the European Union shows more flexibility in talks over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss told the EU on Thursday.
Striking a deal that preserved peace in Northern Ireland and protected the EU’s single market without imposing a hard land border between the British province and EU member state Ireland, or a border within the United Kingdom, was always the biggest challenge for London as it embarked on its exit from the bloc.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government agreed to a protocol which instead created a customs border in the sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, but it now says the required bureaucracy is intolerable.
The Conservative government has been threatening to rip up the protocol for months, raising the risk of a trade war with Europe at a time of soaring inflation and prompting concern across Europe and in Washington.
In a call with European Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic, Truss again argued that a lack of agreement on the so-called Northern Ireland protocol was threatening a 1998 peace deal, which largely ended decades of sectarian violence.
“The Foreign Secretary … said the situation in Northern Ireland is a matter of internal peace and security for the United Kingdom, and if the EU would not show the requisite flexibility to help solve those issues, then as a responsible government we would have no choice but to act,” a British statement said.
“Vice President Sefcovic confirmed that there was no room to expand the EU negotiating mandate or introduce new proposals to reduce the overall level of trade friction.”
Truss noted this “with regret”, the statement said.
(Reporting by William James and Elizabeth Piper)
