The British government has formally introduced a bill in Parliament proposing amendments to the post-Brexit trade deal in a bid to ease the flow of goods coming to and from Northern Ireland to the rest of the UK by removing "unnecessary" bureaucratic red tape.
The government said these problems have undermined the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement on Northern Ireland peace and caused the effective "collapse" of power sharing agreements in the Northern Ireland Assembly, the Stormont.
"Following 18 months of discussions with the EU, the UK's preference remains for a negotiated solution to fix these problems which are baked into the Protocol. But the EU must be willing to change the Protocol itself. Ministers believe that the serious situation in Northern Ireland means they cannot afford to delay", the release added.
Brussels, Britain's opposition parties, and republican forces in Northern Ireland itself have marked
staunch opposition to any efforts to introduce remedial mechanisms to the existing agreement, suggesting that doing so would violate the Brexit agreement and international law.
However, Foreign Secretary Liz Truss insisted that London has the right to call for changes if the existing treaty interferes with trade or threatens social cohesion.
Truss said the bill, if passed, would "end the untenable situation where people in Northern Ireland are treated differently to the rest of the United Kingdom, protect the supremacy of our courts and our territorial integrity".
Earlier Monday, Irish media
reported that Brussels would launch legal action against Britain "as soon as Wednesday" in response to the Johnson government's efforts to alter the agreement, and threaten retaliatory trade action against Britain.
"Today's decision by the UK government undermines the trust that is necessary for bilateral EU-UK cooperation within the framework of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. We call on the UK government to engage with us on joint solutions. The Commission stands ready to play its part -as it has from the outset," Sefcovic said. He stressed however that there was "no workable alternative solution to [the] delicate, long-negotiated balance" in the existing NI Protocol agreement, and that "for these reasons, the European Union will not renegotiate the Protocol."
Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney called the bill "a particular low point in the UK's approach to Brexit", while Prime Minister Michael Martin said it was "very regrettable for a country like the UK to renege on an international treaty".
The Financial Times earlier reported that Mr Johnson is facing a rebellion from within his own ranks, with Tory backbenchers reportedly circulating a note warning that "breaking international law to rip up the Prime Minister's own treaty is damaging to everything the UK and Conservatives stand for".
Johnson
defended the planned legislation in an interview with LBC radio Monday, characterising it as a "seaplane" that's "going to take off from the water because it's the right thing" and "the right way forward".
Johnson suggested the proposed changes would be "relatively simple" to accomplish, calling the alterations "a relatively trivial set of adjustments in the grand scheme of things".
The Northern Ireland Protocol is part of the UK's Brexit deal with the EU, committing the two sides to agree to keep the land border free of customs and other checks, with these instead performed upon entry to/exit from Northern Ireland to/from other parts of the UK. The Democratic Unionist Party, a loyalist political force seeking to prevent Northern Ireland from drifting away from UK control, has slammed the protocol and vowed not to return to the power-sharing government until it is ripped up or amended to take into account its concerns.