The Irish government has accused Boris Johnson of trying to sabotage the Northern Ireland peace process with a “unilateral provocative act” based on spurious claims about the Good Friday agreement. As Brexit talks hang by a thread following the UK’s threat to renege on parts of the withdrawal agreement, Thomas Byrne, Ireland’s European affairs minister, branded the UK government’s claims that its move was to protect the peace process as “completely false”. He said what would happen as a result of this bill becoming law was “completely unthinkable”. Relations with the EU have plunged to a new low in the last 24 hours after the UK rejected Brussels demands to withdraw the parts of the internal markets bill that would give the government power to override the Northern Ireland protocol.
The move has also soured Anglo-Irish relations, with no warning of the plan to undo the Brexit arrangements on Northern Ireland by one of the co-guarantors of the Good Friday agreement. Byrne told BBC’s Radio 4 Today programme: “It’s a totally unacceptable way to do business, and we would value very close relations with Britain. In fact, good relations with Britain are absolutely essential for the peace process to work, as well as at the lack of a hard border, and good relations within the north and north/south. “This was a unilateral, provocative act, that is … uniquely unprecedented. The statement that this is to help the Good Friday agreement is completely false and is completely wrong. “The constitutional status of Northern Ireland is, first of all, protected in the Good Friday agreement, is protected and mentioned again in the protocol which Boris Johnson agreed less than a year ago. “The entire premise of the Good Friday agreement is, in fact, agreement between the peoples of the north, the north and south and between Britain and Ireland. So you cannot then allow one side, in any aspect of the complicated relationships on the two islands, decided to change things unilaterally, and that’s not unique to our situation. “What is not expected is one side of that [peace agreement] simply pulls the plug and says no, we’re going to change something without even consulting.” Byrne called on Johnson to think again and allow “common sense to prevail” and realise he is threatening a peace process that took decades of hard work to achieve. He said: “Boris Johnson agreed this agreement. He ran the general election on the basis of support this agreement, and this is absolutely unprecedented. To then turn around months later and say, well actually we didn’t realise that this was like this? “Everybody knew the complexities of the island of Ireland, and everybody knew this agreement would be to everybody’s benefit both in the island of Ireland and in Great Britain.” Trade talks between the EU and the UK will continue next week but the outlook remains bleak, with relations soured with the EU and key allies. The German ambassador to the UK tweeted on Thursday night that he had not in his 30 years as a diplomat “experienced such a fast, intentional and profound deterioration of a negotiation”.
Johnson is also facing a backbench rebellion led by Sir Bob Neill, with up to 30 MPs reportedly willing to vote for an amendment on the offending parts of the bill and some including Sir Roger Gale saying if the bill is tabled unamended they will vote against it entirely.