The EU has threatened swift and firm retribution if Boris Johnson violates his Brexit deal again to avoid new trade controls he agreed would apply to Northern Ireland.
In a strongly worded warning commissioner Maroš Šefčovič said Brussels would “not be shy in reacting swiftly, firmly and resolutely to ensure that the UK abides by its international law obligations”.
But environment secretary George Eustice said it would be “bonkers” if chilled meats such as sausages and mince were blocked from export from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland from the end of June under the terms of the deal agreed by Mr Johnson in 2019.
The UK government is threatening unilaterally to extend a “grace period” on the products in the same way that it already has with supermarket supplies and parcels, enraging Brussels by breaching the terms of the Northern Ireland protocol.
The PM’s official spokesperson told reporters: “There’s no case whatsoever for preventing chilled meats from being sold to Northern Ireland.
“We want to work with the EU to find a solution. That is the focus. That’s why we have submitted 10 papers to the Commission proposing potential solutions and we are keen to hear from the EU.”
Mr Eustice suggested that the European Commission had been “slow to engage” with the impending implementation of protocol rules on chilled meats.
But Theresa May’s former chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, said it appeared that Mr Johnson and his Brexit negotiator Lord Frost had always intended to breach the terms of the agreement they negotiated and signed.
“They knew it was a bad deal but agreed it to get Brexit done, intending to wriggle out of it later,” said Lord Barwell. “The EU has no intention of letting the UK wriggle out of what it signed up to, so we should expect UK/EU relations to get worse before they get better.”
The row burst into public ahead of a meeting between Šefčovič and Frost on Wednesday over the troubled Northern Ireland protocol.
The UK says the agreement it negotiated and signed last year is having a more damaging effect on Northern Ireland than it had anticipated, and wants the EU to relax some of the requirements.
Businesses in the province, who have so far been supportive of the agreement, warned overnight that their faith in it was being tested by the two sides, and said the situation would get worse.
Mr Šefčovič and his opposite number Lord Frost have had their teams locked in technical talks for months on how to better implement the deal, but with little to show for it.
The province’s loyalist community are also opposed to the new barriers to trade the deal introduces down the Irish Sea, which were introduced as a way of keeping the border with the Republic open.
The UK has already unilaterally extended grace periods on the deal up to October, a move the EU says breaches the agreement both sides negotiated but which Britain says is necessary to keep supermarkets supplies.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper on Tuesday, Mr Šefčovič said the protocol was the “best solution” to “the type of Brexit that the current UK Government chose”.
“No one knows it better than Lord Frost himself, then the UK’s chief Brexit negotiator,” he added.
The EU could trigger a Brexit treaty mechanism that would ultimately lead to heavy tariffs on UK exports and the suspension of parts of the trade agreement.
EU officials say patience is wearing thin and that the UK needs to implement the protocol as negotiated.
Nathalie Loiseau, an MEP on the European Parliament’s UK coordinating group and Emmanuel Macron’s top ally in Brussels, told the BBC: “The reality is that the UK negotiated, signed and ratified two agreements with the European Union, and the European Union expects the UK to stick to its commitments and implement them.”
Asked what measures the EU could take, she said: “There are a number of possibilities within the TCA – if the UK keeps on breaching its promises, breaching its commitments, there can be tariffs, there can be quotas on some products exported to the European Union.”
Mr Eustice said he expected US president Joe Biden to come down on the UK side of the argument when he arrives in Cornwall later this week for the G7 conference.
Asked about a possible intervention by US president, who has previously warned the UK over the issue, Mr Eustice told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I suspect that any US administration would be amazed if you were to say, for instance, that a sausage from Texas couldn’t be sold to California, there would be an outright ban – they really wouldn’t understand how that could even be contemplated.”
