Liz Truss, the UK’s foreign minister, agreed to toughen the bill following last-minute representations by the European Research Group in favor of Brexit, which led to a heated debate in the cabinet on Wednesday. The bill will be published next week. Johnson, backed by Prime Minister Michael Gove, criticized Trash for the changes, saying they would increase tensions with Brussels and make it impossible to negotiate with the EU. The bill to give ministers the power to circumvent the protocol is being redrafted again, but Tory Eurosceptics fired a warning at Johnson, telling him they could vote against it if he did not comply with their demands. “We want to neutralize the protocol,” said a senior ERG official, arguing that the text – part of the prime minister’s Brexit 2020 agreement with the EU – was causing political instability in the region. The protocol provides for post-Brexit trade arrangements for Northern Ireland, which remains in the EU single goods market to allow free trade to continue beyond the open borders with the Republic of Ireland. But trade unionists in favor of the United Kingdom in Northern Ireland oppose the protocol because it creates a trade border in the Irish Sea for goods traveling east-west through the UK. The Democratic Unionist Party refuses to rejoin the Northern Ireland executive, with Sinn Fein, the nationalist party, protesting the protocol. Bernard Jenkin, a member of the ERG, told the public: “If the government submits a bill that does not provide for the serious prospect of restoring the distribution of power in Northern Ireland and restoring the Good Friday Agreement, I will vote against it. . » Tras agreed to amend the bill to meet ERG’s demands that the European Court of Justice be removed from any role in Northern Ireland and for “expiry clauses” that would delete key parts of the protocol within four years. Johnson instructed Tras to cut the bill, but that raises the nightmarish blocking scenario just a week after 41 percent of his party’s lawmakers voted in favor of the expulsion.

Pro-European Tories, including former Prime Minister Theresa May, oppose the bill because they believe it could be illegal under international law and hurt Britain’s position in the world, deepening the rift with the EU. The idea of ​​joining forces with Eurosceptic Tory lawmakers, who may conclude the measure is too weak, reinforces fears among some in the cabinet of an ongoing political catastrophe. Ministers questioned Wednesday whether legislation to repeal the Johnson International Treaty was legal. Others worried that the DUP had not guaranteed that it would rejoin the Stormont executive, even if the bill was passed. Sir Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition Labor Party, said that with “good faith, state of the art and confidence at the negotiating table”, the UK and the EU should be able to make technical changes to remove commercial frictions caused by the protocol. However, he said Johnson did not have the skills to negotiate a deal and accused him of taking “a ball of disaster” in UK-Ireland relations, which are at a very low ebb. Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has warned that “the EU’s position has hardened” on the protocol. “I do not think there is a single capital in the whole EU, or anyone in the European Commission, who believes, anyway, at the moment that the British government is serious about a negotiated solution,” he said.