Boris Johnson is using a “Putinesque” strategy by staging a “humongous” row with the EU over his protocol bill, according to former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain.
The ex-Labour cabinet minister said the prime minister would try to keep a distracting Brexit dispute going “with the old villain Brussels” all the way until the next general election.
Comparing Mr Johnson’s tactics to the Russia president Vladimir Putin, Mr Hain said Mr Johnson had cast aside “old-fashioned notions of truth, sticking to your word, trust, and obeying international law”.
“There is something Putinesque about the government’s framing of its Northern Ireland Protocol Bill,” the former NI secretary wrote in The Guardian.
Mr Hain said the purpose of the bill was “dog-whistling to Johnson’s base by triggering a humongous row with the old villain Brussels because that worked so well in the 2016 Brexit referendum”.
He added: “And keep that going – if at all possible – all the way to the next general election.”
It comes as Irish premier Micheal Martin has warned it would be a “very serious situation” if Mr Johnson’s government enacted legislation to scrap the bulk of the protocol – describing the unilateral move as “economic vandalism”.
Last week, the EU launched fresh legal action against the UK in retaliation over the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would effectively rip up key parts of the deal agreed by Mr Johnson and Brussels in 2019.
“In effect it represents a form of economic vandalism on Northern Ireland because if we look at any objective data, it is now showing that the Northern Ireland economy is doing very well. Manufacturing is doing very well,” Mr Martin told the BBC on Sunday.
“The dairy industry, the meat industry, the food industry generally and agriculture is doing very well,” he added. “There are certain areas where we can improve the protocol and we should continue to do that.”
The government wants to unilaterally create green and red channels to differentiate between GB goods destined for use in NI – which would be freed of red tape – while checks would remain for shipments bound for onward transportation and across the Irish border into the EU.
And the introduction of a dual regulatory system would allow businesses selling in Northern Ireland to choose whether they comply with EU standards, UK standards or both.
Mr Hain said there was a “deal to be done” with Brussels on changes to the protocol to ease trading issues.
“The EU is far from blameless in all this mess, but it is very ready to make changes,” he wrote. “It’s offered to do so, including a willingness to explore ‘red and green channels’ respectively for goods heading into the EU across the Irish border, and those confined to Northern Ireland alone.”
The ex-minister added: “The question is: does Johnson really want one? Or does he prefer the parallel universe blame game that resonates with his supporters but won’t solve the problem.”
