UK: Boris Johnson Accuses EU of Threatening Food Blockade
Nigel Farage: Submitting to EU’s trade demands “would be a breach of contract with the British people.”
Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday accused the European Union of threatening a food blockade of the country if it failed to agree to the ‘divorce’ terms imposed by Brussels. “We are now hearing that, unless we agree to the EU’s terms, the EU will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol to impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea,” the British prime minister wrote in an op-ed for the Daily Telegraph.
The threat of a blockade is meant to intimidate Britons into submission, the British prime minister said. He doubted Brussels’ resolve to take on Europe’s second largest economy. “I have to say that we never seriously believed the EU would be willing to use a treaty, negotiated in good faith, to blockade one part of the UK, to cut it off; or that they would actually threaten to destroy the economic and territorial integrity of the UK,” Johnson explained.
Johnson vowed to thwart any attempt by the EU to tear the country apart. “We cannot leave the theoretical power to carve up our country – to divide it – in the hands of an international organisation,” he said.
Reuters news agency reported British prime minister’s comments:
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accused the European Union of threatening to impose a trade border down the Irish Sea and a food blockade between Britain and Northern Ireland unless the bloc’s terms for a future relationship were agreed. (…)
Writing in the Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson said he had become “anxious” in the last few weeks that the EU might have misunderstood the terms of the Brexit divorce deal which includes a Northern Ireland protocol designed to prevent any hard border between the British province and the Irish republic.
“We are now hearing that, unless we agree to the EU’s terms, the EU will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland protocol to impose a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea,” Johnson wrote in the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
“We are being told that the EU will not only impose tariffs on goods moving from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, but that they might actually stop the transport of food products from GB to NI.”
Johnson’s appeal for national unity in the face of EU’s intimidation comes as his government is pushing a bill through the parliament to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. The proposed UK Internal Market Bill seeks to counter the EU threats to impose hard borders on the the island of Ireland from January 1. The new legislation will “protect the integrity of the UK and the peace process in Northern Ireland,” Johnson government believes.
The draft bill faces stiff opposition from Brussels. “European parliament leaders threatened to veto future UK-EU trade deals unless Johnson withdrew legislation attempting to alter parts of the Withdrawal Agreement,” German state broadcaster DW News reported on Saturday.
The UK officially left the EU on January 31, 2020, more than three years after the July 2016 Brexit referendum. Till December 31, the UK will remain part of the EU customs union and single market. London is currently trying to strike a UK-EU trade deal to replace the current arrangement once the transition period ends in December.
According to the EU leaders, the trade agreement will come at the price of UK’s sovereignty. German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other European leaders want the UK to conform to EU laws and regulations in order to mainstream good trade relations with the 27-member bloc.
EU leaders threatened the UK’s access to the European market if it fails to play by their rules. “If Britain does not want to have rules on the environment and the labour market or social standards that compare with those of the EU, our relations will be less close,” Merkel warned in July. This, however, is ironic, since the Britons voted in the 2016 referendum to free themselves from these very law made by unelected officials in Brussels.
Johnson’s firm stand against the EU might have been stiffened by political considerations at home. His Conservatives face pressure from the Right. Last week, Brexit campaigner Nigel Farage reportedly vowed to revive his Brexit Party if Johnson ‘caves in’ under Brussels’ pressure.
The Brexit Party founder rejected any “political and regulatory alignment” with the EU. “For Boris and his team to give into what Michel Barnier [EU’s Brexit negotiator] wants, it would be a breach of contract with the British people,” Farage warned.
On the other side of the English channel, the villainous EU commissars would do well to learn a bit of European history. The two historic attempts to impose a blockade on Britain ended disastrously for the continental powers. The Napoleonic embargo of the early ninetieth century, and Hitler’s U-boat blockade ended in the total collapse of the belligerent empires.
Boris Johnson: UK is ‘ready’ and will ‘prosper mightily’ regardless of the EU trade deal (September 4)
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Comments
If Britain starts buying American food, will
Germany“the EU” put wolf packs back in the Atlantic?They are certainly behaving like rogue actors from the past; having learned nothing from history.
UK needs to bomb EU with bangers and mash.
That’ll learn them.
Marmite bombs!
Now that’s real evil right there.
Marmite to start the conflagration, Vegemite to finish the job.
Heh, I was going to say the same.
Time for a blockade run by the Trump led USA. Or just tell the EU to turn their goods laden ships around…
What is this really?
Just another instance of Germany trying to make war on the Brits. This is try #3 of the modern era, so WWIII.
Since the Germans seem to be the controlling nation in the EU I’d say that the chances were north of 0% by a significant number.
Well, the EU have dropped their mask. Their problem is that gunboat diplomacy requires both gunboat and the resolve to use them. The has neither, the EU is not a nation state.
Further this deranged interpretation will certainly destroy NATO if carried out and likely the EU as well. How many EU members will remain inside such an organization? Likely not the Poles, Czechs, Baltic States. The Germans will be left footing the economic development bill for Greece, Italy and other spendthrift.
Last I checked the Germans don’t have a viable navy. Do they expect the French or Spanish to enforce a blockade on behalf of the EU? Do they expect that the U.S. will respect a blockade?
Under a President Harris, the US just might honor an EU blockade.
Under the “Harris Administration” – with co-president Biden, expect participation in enforcement.
The documentary series “Drain the Oceans” has an episode on Hitlers attempt to use a Navy. Their surface fleet did not fare well.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10925854/?ref_=ttep_ep12
The special episode on The Great Lakes will cause any “Climate Change” fan’s head to burst. The Lakes have been going up and down and all around for the last 10,000 years with absolutely no human involvement. Whodathunk?
The British Navy isn’t what it used to be, but I’ll back it against anything the EU can throw at them.
Was going to say there must be a large friendly country, speaks same language that can sell them whatever they need.
Canada? /g
The world’s best president ever ought to step in and offer the UK a lifeline in the form of a kick-ass trade agreement. Then President Trump could impose tariffs on German automobiles and withdraw another 10,000 troops from Germany.
Along with the tariffs, let’s revise the tax laws that have the taxpayers subsidizing vehicle leases. All those Mercs, BMWs, Audis etc that are “fleet vehicles” but are in fact driven by spouses and children.
Bingo.
The EU must believe there is no other market and no other source than the EU. They are going to find out the hard way that temper tantrums and holding your breath and pouting is not going to benefit the EU. They could make a deal, which would benefit both the EU and the UK, but unfortunately Brussels doesn’t get it.
Looking forward to the increased availability of British products.
I’m not even sure what that means. How can the EU prevent Northern Ireland from doing its usual internal trade with Scotland, England and Wales? The UK is one country, and I don’t see that the EU can do squat about that.
The UK and Ireland have apparently worked out a deal in which there will be no ‘hard border’ between Ireland and Northern Ireland. Perhaps the EU can force Ireland, which remains an EU member, not to trade with the UK. But a trade border down the Irish Sea? Preposterous.
“Preposterous”
Like the EU itself, always destined to be a failure.
The Second and Third Reichs tried this shtick, respectively, in World Wars I and II. So now the Fourth Reich, a/k/a the European Union, is going to try the same thing. I am sure the UK can get anything it needs from elsewhere, unless the Fourth Reich has an unknown submarine fleet.
Three Reichs are you’re out. Those are the rules. Sorry. No fourth Reich
Even if they express themselves in a fourthreich manner.
This could escalate to where it would be impossible to buy … GASP … a BMW or Mercedes.
Correct me if I’m wrong but a “food blockade” would only work if the UK were unable to get food from somewhere else. You know, like the rest of the world outside of the EU. So it seems rather silly if the EU were to threaten such a thing. They can’t enforce other countries to abide by a food embargo.
Evidently, the EU pretends to be the Worlds belly button.
A navel engagement?