Former U.K. leaders slam Johnson over Brexit plan
Blair, Major urge MPs to reject ‘shameful’ attempt to override parts of deal
LONDON— Two former British prime ministers who played crucial roles in bringing peace to Northern Ireland joined forces Sunday to urge lawmakers to reject government plans to override the Brexit deal with the European Union, arguing that it imperils that peace and damages the U.K.’s reputation.
In an article in The Sunday Times, John Major and Tony Blair slammed the current British government for “shaming” the country with legislation that, in places, goes against the very deal it signed to allow for the U.K.’s smooth departure from the EU earlier this year.
Major, a Conservative prime minister from 1990 to 1997, and Blair, his Labour successor for a decade, said Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Internal Market Bill “questions the very integrity” of the U.K.
“This government’s action is shaming itself and embarrassing our nation,” they said.
The planned legislation, which will be debated by British lawmakers this week, has led to a furious outcry within the EU as it would diminish the bloc’s previously agreed oversight of trade between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland if a U.K.-EU trade agreement isn’t secured.
The British government has admitted that the legislation would break international law, but argues that it’s an insurance policy for that potential “nodeal” scenario. Johnson has said the legislation is needed to end EU threats to impose a “blockade” in the Irish Sea that the prime minister asserted could “carve up our country.”
Britain’s Justice Secretary Robert Buckland told the BBC on Sunday that the legislation was a “break the glass in emergency provision,” if needed, and that he would resign if he believed the rule of law was broken in an “unacceptable” way.
“I don’t believe we’re going to get to that stage,” he said.
EU leaders have furiously rejected Johnson’s charge that the bloc is planning a major disruption to normal trade between mainland Britain and Northern Ireland.
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said the “kind of inflammatory language” coming from the British government was “spin and not the truth.”
Still, with the British government showing no sign of changing course, there are real concerns that the talks on a future trade deal between the U.K. and the EU could collapse within weeks. If that happens, tariffs and other impediments to trade will be imposed by both sides at the start of 2021.
The U.K. left the EU on Jan. 31, but it is in a transition period that sees it benefit from the bloc’s tariff-free trade until the end of the year while a future relationship is negotiated.