US presidential candidate Joe Biden warns UK on Brexit – Daily Notable
London
U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden warned the United Kingdom that it must honour Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace agreement as it withdraws from the European Union or there would be no separate U.S. trade deal.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson is proposing new legislation that would break the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit divorce treaty that seeks to avoid a physical customs border between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.
“We can’t allow the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland to become a casualty of Brexit,” Biden said in a tweet on Wednesday.
“Any trade deal between the U.S. and U.K. must be contingent upon respect for the Agreement and preventing the return of a hard border. Period.”
Johnson insists he is defending not threatening the Good Friday pact, which ended three decades of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland between pro-British Protestant unionists and Irish Catholic nationalists.
For Eagle Eye Click Here
He accuses the EU of trying to divide the United Kingdom and of putting a revolver on the table in talks to set rules for an estimated $1 trillion in annual trade after Britain’s post-Brexit transition period expires at year-end.
“The PM has been clear throughout that we are taking these steps precisely to make sure that the Belfast Agreement is upheld in all circumstances and any harmful defaults do not inadvertently come into play,” Johnson’s spokesman said.
The prime minister says the United Kingdom must have the ability to break parts of its Withdrawal Agreement. With the EU if London is to uphold commitments under the 1998 peace deal.
The EU says any breach of the Brexit treaty could sink trade talks, propel the United Kingdom. Towards a messy exit when it fully departs on Dec. 31. And thus complicate the Northern Irish border, the country’s only land frontier with the EU.
The EU’s Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier told the bloc’s 27 national envoys on Wednesday. That he was still optimistic, three diplomatic sources told Reuters.
For Notable Series Click Here
“Barnier still believes a deal possible though the next days key,” said one of the EU sources.
Johnson told The Sun newspaper that the EU must not allowed to abuse Britain and risk four decades of partnership.
Moreover, he said the United Kingdom must “ring-fence” the Brexit deal “to put in watertight bulkheads. That will stop friends and partners making abusive or extreme interpretations of the provisions”. He used the example of a potential EU demand for tariffs on food going to Northern Ireland from Britain.
Societe Generale analysts said on Thursday they now see an 80% chance that Britain and the EU will fail. To strike a trade deal before the end of the year. -PUNA