The U.K.’s desire to rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol was absent in detail from the Queen’s Speech on Tuesday, amid reports that domestic legislation is being prepared to override large chunks of the Brexit deal.
While the U.K. repeated its warning that it will take necessary steps to address problems caused by the protocol, no named bill or signal of future legislation was included in the speech, which sets out the government’s agenda for the next parliamentary session.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party said Monday it won’t join a new government with the nationalists Sinn Fein following last week’s election until decisive action is taken by the U.K. on the protocol. Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement the posts of first minister and deputy first minister—effectively one nationalist and one unionist—are equal and one cannot be in place without the other.
The protocol is the biggest outstanding issue resulting from Britain’s split with the EU. The U.K. has long threatened to tear up the post-Brexit settlement, which saw the creation of an effective customs border between the region and the rest of the U.K., but are yet to follow through on their threats. The European Union’s top negotiator on Northern Ireland, Maros Sefcovic, also said he would be keeping an eye on what was said in the Queen’s Speech.
Despite not being detailed in Tuesday’s State Opening of Parliament, the Times of London reported that Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will move as soon as next week to scrap large parts of the protocol in British law after losing faith in the negotiations. The draft legislation would unilaterally remove the need for checks on goods being sent from Britain to Northern Ireland and would allow businesses to disregard EU rules, the newspaper said.
“In the interests of all communities of Northern Ireland, the Protocol needs to change,” the U.K. said in the Queen’s Speech. “We urge our partners in the EU to work with us, with new imagination and flexibility, to deliver that.”
Even so, discussions will not “stand in the way of protecting peace and stability” in the region it said. “We will take the steps necessary to protect all dimensions of the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement and meet our obligations under the New Decade New Approach Deal to protect Northern Ireland’s place in the U.K. internal market.”
The Foreign Office said no decisions have yet been taken on the way forward, while calling the situation “now very serious,” in a statement Tuesday.
The opposition Labour Party said the government “risks a trade war during a cost of living crisis” if it does move to scrap the Protocol. “There is no consensus to scrap the Protocol in Cabinet, let alone in Northern Ireland,” said Jenny Chapman, Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office Minister. “The last thing the country needs is more instability and a damaging trade dispute with our nearest trading partners.”
The government also pledged on Tuesday to give the Irish language official recognition in law, a condition Sinn Fein had demanded in order for it to return to the power-sharing executive last year.
The DUP’s refusal to form an executive is “punishing the public,” Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill, who is in line to be the region’s first minister tweeted Tuesday after speaking to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson. “The public here can’t be a pawn in the British Government’s game of chicken with the EU. Time to form an Executive now.”
The U.K. also announced Tuesday that it would introduce further regulations to ensure access to safe abortion care in Northern Ireland, and will introduce legislation to provide better outcomes for those impacted by the period of violence known as The Troubles in Northern Ireland.
