Ireland accuses Boris Johnson of trying to
sabotage peace process
Dublin minister says UK plan to undo Brexit deal would
have ‘unthinkable’ consequences
Lisa
O'Carroll and Daniel Boffey
Fri 11 Sep
2020 10.06 BSTLast modified on Fri 11 Sep 2020 10.55 BST
Ireland’s European affairs minister branded Boris
Johnson’s threat to renege on parts of the withdrawal act as a ‘universal
provocative act’.
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.
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