THE UK will be seen as an untrustworthy partner by other countries because of the Government’s unilateral changes to the Northern Ireland Protocol, Labour’s shadow secretary of state has claimed.
Peter Kyle said Labour MPs will vote against the Government’s Northern Ireland Protocol Bill today as it breaks international law.
He told GB News: “He [the Prime Minister] said there will be no re-negotiation and now they’re seeking to break the law and pull out unilaterally of their own deal and so they’re saying because the EU won’t renegotiate fully.
“I think there’s a lot of confusion at the moment and the rest of the world that we’re now trying to do deals with elsewhere, are looking on aghast at what’s happening in the way that Britain is behaving and they’re seeing an untrustworthy country.
“The Labour Party wants to restore trust to our international partnerships. We ought to make sure that we’re a country that people can do deals with and know that when we sign a deal, we stick to it.”
He added: “I mean, if the EU, for example, was to unilaterally pass legislation to pull out of the deals, it signed the commitments it signed with the UK, how would we respond?
“I don’t think this is the way that we do things with our global partners. The EU is one of many global partners, and whether we’re talking about our relationships with the US or the EU, or other of our global partners.”
He slammed the Government over its negotiating tactics: “The last generation under Tony Blair, they delivered peace in Northern Ireland through the most extraordinary statecraft and negotiation.
“This generation under Boris Johnson, they can’t even get a prawn sandwich across the Irish Sea.”
Mr Kyle said in an interview during Breakfast with Eamonn Holmes and Isabel Webster that Labour will be voting against the bill after its second reading in the House of Commons today.
“We will be voting against the protocol bill today simply because it is breaking an international treaty and international commitment that Britain signed into law,” he said.
“But also, we have to understand that everything in this bill by one or two items is perfectly negotiable. We don’t have to put a wrecking ball through the deal in order to deliver for the British economy and also for the Northern Ireland economy, which is why this is really concerning.
“Also we have to bear in mind that just two years ago, Boris Johnson negotiated this deal, he was the one that proposed it to the European Union and insisted it be part of the deal and negotiated it into the treaty.”
He also claimed the Government has not been fully engaged in negotiations with the EU over the changes.
“The Government had been so unsuccessful in negotiations and…hasn’t actually engaged in negotiations bearing in mind, it’s been almost two and a half months since the UK even had a conversation officially with the EU about progress because of lack of progress,” he said.
“Then, of course, political unrest has been fermented and distrust in the protocol and frustration and the lack of progress on the Unionist side.
“Now, what we have to do is recognise this – I understand that the Unionists have seen the protocol as an existential threat and we have to engage with them on their own terms on
