Irish Justice Minister Helen McEntee on Sunday rebuffed British leader Boris Johnson’s accusations that the European Union (EU) was threatening a blockade of Northern Ireland after a tense week between London and Brussels.
“It just isn’t the case,” Helen McEntee responded to Sky News about the discussions over a post-‘Brexit ‘deal that escalated this week, stating that “any hints that it will create a border are simply false.”
In a column published on Saturday in the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defended his intention to partly reverse the Brexit deal, arguing that he was forced to do so in the face of the “threat” of EU introduces a “blockade” of Northern Ireland, due to an “extreme interpretation” of the text, preventing food from entering the United Kingdom.
“I must say that we never seriously believed that the EU would be able to use a treaty, negotiated in good faith, to establish a blockade on the part of the United Kingdom, or that they would threaten to destroy the economic and territorial integrity of the United Kingdom,” wrote Boris Johnson in the newspaper article.
Helen McEntee recalled that Northern Ireland’s treaty provisions codifying the UK’s withdrawal from the EU were accepted by both parties in order to ensure fair competition after ‘Brexit’.
They also want to prevent the return of a physical border with the island of Ireland, which has been affected by three decades of conflict, until the signing of the Good Friday peace agreement in 1998.
The treaty “also guarantees the integrity of Northern Ireland as an integral part of the United Kingdom,” said the Irish Minister of Justice, who, she added, “guarantees that no borders will reappear”.
–
