‘Revise your mandate!’ Eustice threatens EU over ‘foolish’ trade war plans

George Eustice grilled on trade war over Northern Ireland protocol

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Environment Secretary George Eustice claimed it would be “a very fooling thing to do for the European Union” to engage in a trade war with the UK over the alteration of “banal details” on the Northern Ireland protocol. He urged the EU to “revise their mandate and reengage in discussions from a meaningful basis”, but warned “in the absence of that, it falls to the UK government to determine the correct legal interpretation by implementing an act of Parliament that gives us the ability to derogate from elements of it in order to make it work”.

Mr Eustice told Sky News: “It was a complete deal but there were remaining technical details, often over quite banal things like the technical way that you regulate and allow access for things like seed potatoes.”

Sky News presenter Kay Burley asked: “Do you think the EU will go into a trade war over banal details?”

He responded: “No, I don’t.

“I think it would be a very foolish thing of them to do.

“I think what they need to do is revise their mandate and reengage in discussions from a meaningful basis having talked to their own member states.

“That’s what we would like them to do.

“In the absence of that, obviously it falls to the UK government to determine the correct legal interpretation by implementing an act of Parliament that gives us the ability to derogate from elements of it where necessary in order to make it work.”

He also added: “We would still rather that the EU did what they ought to have done many months ago.

“Change their mandate, talk to their own member states about what they should be doing.

“And then actually come back to the table and work out how to make that Northern Ireland protocol work.

“In the absence of that, what we will do and we can absolutely give them this guarantee that we will protect the interest of the EU single market in the way we legislate.

“We’re talking about having red lanes and green lanes so that goods tested only for Northern Ireland won’t need checks but still good to do to the single market, which still have those checks.

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“That gives the European Union all the reassurance that they need for their own single market”.

MPs will vote on Monday on the new legislation which would give the UK the ability to alter parts of the Northern Ireland protocol.

Ahead of vote, Boris Johnson said the government is trying to “fix something that is very important to our country, which is the balance of the Good Friday Agreement”.

He added: “You have got one tradition, one community, that feels that things really aren’t working in a way that they like or understand, you’ve got unnecessary barriers to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

“All we are saying is you can get rid of those whilst not in any way endangering the EU single market”.

In light of the vote on a new Brexit bill, the European Union’s ambassador to the UK Joao Vale de Almeida criticised the UK government’s plan and said: “I am afraid that the government’s track is very probably, unfortunately, a road to nowhere and we would like to avoid that.”

Speaking at Sky News, he added: We are not dismissing but we read it very carefully and we think, to be very frank, that it is both illegal and unrealistic.

“It is illegal because it is a breach of international law, a breach of EU law, UK law and international law”.

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