Brexit Row Boils Over at G-7 as U.K. and EU Leaders Clash

(Bloomberg) -- British Prime Minister Boris Johnson clashed with European Union leaders as the escalating dispute over post-Brexit trade threatened to dominate the Group of Seven summit in England.

Johnson held a series of one-to-one meetings with his European counterparts on Saturday as time runs out to resolve a row over post-Brexit trade rules for goods shipped to Northern Ireland. The topic loomed large in those meetings, punctuated by disagreement between the two sides, EU officials said.

After the talks, Johnson’s office stepped up the rhetoric, and issued a thinly veiled threat to abandon the Brexit agreement “protocol” governing customs and import checks for Northern Ireland, a semi-autonomous region of the U.K.

“The prime minister’s desire currently is to work within the existing protocol to find radical and pragmatic solutions,” Johnson’s spokesman Max Blain said at a media briefing in Cornwall. Asked if the U.K. was no longer committed to the Northern Ireland deal in all circumstances, Blain said the government would not rule anything out for the future.

Veiled Threats

That will be seen as a warning that Britain could suspend parts of the Brexit agreement it struck with the EU less than two years ago, unless the bloc backs down and agrees to a compromise when the current grace period governing trade expires on June 30.

For its part, the EU has threatened to retaliate if the British government unilaterally breaks the terms of the accord.

One EU official briefed on the discussions said that while a pragmatic solution will need to be found, it would be wrong for the U.K. to assume that the 27-nation bloc will simply forget about the protocol. Another EU official said the rhetoric needed to be toned down and that members states are aligned.

The argument is at risk of overshadowing Johnson’s carefully laid plans for the first in-person gathering of the leaders of the seven major economies since the pandemic began. The British leader wants the summit to focus on action to tackle the coronavirus crisis in the developing world and concrete steps to tackle climate change.

He also hoped it would showcase British leadership and present a positive image of the country as a global trading nation after successfully concluding its split from the EU.

Instead, Johnson has faced repeated questions over the fallout from Brexit and pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden’s team over the specific pressures on Northern Ireland.

During his meeting with Johnson on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron strongly told the British leader he must honor the divorce deal he signed with the bloc, and hoped a reset of souring relations between the two sides would follow, according to an official.

Bloody-Minded

Even as the French and British sides were meeting, U.K. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stepped up his rhetoric against the bloc. The choice over whether the argument worsens is one for the Europeans, Raab told BBC radio on Saturday.

“They can be more pragmatic about the implementation of the Northern Ireland protocol in a way that is win-win or they can be bloody-minded and purist about it, in which case I am afraid we will not allow the integrity of the U.K. to be threatened,” he said.

In the six months since the U.K. completed its divorce from the EU, relations between the two sides have deteriorated, with a series of arguments over unrelated issues, including vaccine sharing, supermarket supplies, and fishing rights for French boats in British waters.

The latest flashpoint is over rules affecting the movement of goods into Northern Ireland. Under the terms of the Brexit divorce agreement, a trade border was created in the Irish sea, roiling supermarket supply chains and stirring violent protests among Northern Ireland’s pro-U.K supporters.

Tensions between the U.K. and EU have been rising for months, with the British criticizing the bloc’s “legal purism” and calling for more flexibility.

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.