Boris Johnson has confirmed he will press ahead with legislation to override the Northern Ireland protocol, despite warnings from Brussels that it will breach the UK’s international legal obligations and a plea from the Bank of England not to spark a damaging trade war with Europe.
Speaking after a day of meetings with the leaders of the country’s five main political parties, where he sought to make progress on the impasse over the post-Brexit arrangement, the prime minister said his government did not want to “scrap” the protocol, but “fix” it.
“We don’t want to scrap it. But we think it can be fixed. And actually, five of the five parties I talked to today also think it needs reform,” said Mr Johnson on Monday.
But the risky move looked unlikely to break the deadlock over the formation of a new power-sharing executive in Northern Ireland, with the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) insisting that it wants “decisive action” from the PM before it will drop its boycott.
