BORIS Johnson has vowed to carry on with the law-breaking Internal Market Bill despite suffering a huge defeat in the House of Lords last night.
Peers voted 433 to 165 to remove a section of the bill that allows ministers to effectively ignore the Good Friday Agreement by disapplying parts of the Northern Ireland protocol.
Shortly after the defeat, a government spokesman said in a statement: "We will retable these clauses when the bill returns to the Commons.
"We've been consistently clear that the clauses represent a legal safety net to protect the integrity of the UK's internal market and the huge gains of the peace process.
"We expect the House of Lords to recognise that we have an obligation to the people of Northern Ireland to make sure they continue to have unfettered access to the UK under all circumstances."
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The Internal Market Bill is designed to smooth the movement of goods and services between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland after the Brexit transition period ends.
However, the UK government has admitted that to do this the legislation breaks international law in a “very specific and limited way”.
It breaches part of the Northern Ireland protocol as set out in the withdrawal agreement signed with the EU, handing powers to ministers over state aid powers and export rules.
The Tory unwillingness to compromise on the controversial measures of the legislation sets Johnson up for a clash with Joe Biden.
In September the President-elect said the Good Friday agreement could not be allowed to become “a casualty of Brexit”.
He added: “Any trade deal between the US and UK must be contingent upon respect for the agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”
Last night Ireland’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, warned that there would be no Brexit trade deal if the UK passed a bill with the controversial clauses still in place.
He told BBC’s Newsnight:“Anybody who is suggesting that this has been a successful or a good tactic ... doesn’t understand the conversations that are happening across the EU right now. This is a tactic that has backfired I think in a significant way,” he said.
Michael Howard, a former Tory leader, was one of those who voted against the government. He said he was dismayed that the UK would “as one of the first assertions of its newly won sovereignty to break its word, to break international law, to renege on a treaty signed barely a year ago”.
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