UK Brexit bill would test US relations

The British government risks jeopardizing a future trade deal with the United States after it said it will push ahead with plans to overrule parts of the Brexit agreement with the European Union despite its controversial legislation suffering a heavy defeat in the Parliament's upper house on Monday night.

The House of Lords voted by 433 votes to 165 to remove a section of the Internal Market Bill that would allow ministers to break international law.

Both the UK and the EU signed up to the so-called Northern Ireland protocol within the Brexit withdrawal agreement of October 2019, which keeps Northern Ireland in customs alignment with Brussels in key areas to prevent a hard border with the Republic of Ireland.

Downing Street has said the new legislation, related to the export of food and agricultural goods, is needed to clarify parts of the protocol, despite threats of legal action from the EU.

"We will retable these clauses when the Bill returns to the Commons," said a government spokesman.

"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."

Post-Brexit trade deal talks between EU and UK officials are continuing in London, but Joe Biden's victory in last week's US presidential election will have a major impact on the negotiations as the UK is also eyeing a future trade agreement with the US.

Biden has Irish ancestry, and the only frontier any part of the UK shares with an EU country is the one between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Previously, Biden has said that the Good Friday Agreement of April 1998, which ended decades of violent conflict in the region, 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."

Ministers have admitted the Internal Market Bill breaks international law by effectively defaulting on aspects of the Brexit deal that Prime Minister Boris Johnson agreed with Brussels last year.

For this reason, some senior Conservative Party members have warned they would not support the Bill in its present form.

There is also criticism of the Bill from the Scottish and Welsh governments, as they say it would steal some powers from the devolved bodies in Edinburgh and Cardiff.

Johnson says the opposite is true and the legislation would "help deliver the single biggest transfer of powers to the devolved administrations since their creation".

Speaking in September when the Bill was put to the House of Commons, Johnson said the legislation is necessary to prevent the EU taking an "extreme and unreasonable" interpretation of the parts of the withdrawal agreement relating to Northern Ireland.

Johnson claims some in Brussels were threatening to block the UK's food and agriculture products for export to the EU and to insist on tariffs on all goods moving to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

He said the Bill is "essential for guaranteeing the economic and political integrity of the United Kingdom".