Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis has slammed the EU’s approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol as “not acceptable” ahead of alleged plans to suspend parts of the deal.
Speaking with Sky News the minister explained: “We have always said that we hold nothing off the table, we keep everything on the table to make sure that we can do what we need to do to ensure the people in Northern Ireland can have the same rights and access to goods as anybody else anywhere in the United Kingdom.
“At the moment the EU are requiring these checks to be put onto goods that are not going into the EU.
“We absolutely respect and always will the need for checks for products that are moving into the EU but they are doing it for products at the moment, and they want to go further with products that are not moving into the EU. That just doesn’t work, it is not acceptable, we have challenges already.”
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He also confirmed that the foreign secretary would today formally announce the government’s plans regarding the post-Brexit deal.
Lewis stated that the UK was open and willing to negotiate with the EU. However, the UK is open to taking action if the EU does not respond to its requests.
“What we have always said is that we will not take anything off the table. We will do everything necessary to ensure that products can be moved to Northern Ireland in the manner they should. This is despite the fact that the protocol says it will respect, but it is not working correctly at the moment.
“We would like to do that by agreement with the EU but as I say, we reserve the right to do what we need to do to do the right thing for the people of Northern Ireland and the wider United Kingdom,” he went on.
