‘Wheels moving’ Brexit concerns — UK is on the point of finalizing AXE disliked the transaction

JACOB REES-MOGG has made it very clear that the Government is poised to abandon the despised Northern Ireland Protocol due to the EU’s failure to uphold its end of the agreement.

When delivering evidence to the Commons European Scrutiny Committee, the Brexit Opportunities minister came out fighting against the Brussels system. He claimed that nothing could prevent Parliament from “doing whatever it pleased” now that the UK has left the EU and that the Protocol regulations establishing a border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK are unnecessary.

The Protocol was established to address Northern Ireland’s land border with the EU and to enable the rest of the UK to exit the single market in order to facilitate trade deals, deregulation, and VAT tax reductions.

However, Mr. Rees-Mogg claimed that it was always intended to be temporary and readily reformable.

“It’s fundamental really, the Northern Ireland protocol does not work,” he told MPs

The Government’s senior Brexiteer then mocked calls that animals traveling from mainland UK to Northern Ireland be inoculated against rabies.

“There has been no rabies in the UK since 1922 and we always used to be more concerned about rabies coming in from the continent,” he said.

The most straightforward way to circumvent the Protocol is to use Article 16, which renders it ineffective, which Foreign Secretary Liz Truss has not ruled out in her negotiations with the EU.

Responding to South Dorset Conservative MP Richard Drax’s question, he added: “We are one United Kingdom, and it is critical that this be maintained, and the Protocol recognizes this.”

“Some of the details of the Protocol are simply not working and need reform.”

Mr. Drax said: “The Protocol is a major concern for many of us. The idea was to leave the EU locked stock and barrel. We haven’t achieved that yet until this Protocol has been resolved. How much longer are we going to put up with this?”

However, Mr. Rees-Mogg made it quite clear that his view of EU trade deals is no longer legally enforceable.

He said: “Any commitments we now have are political-legal rather than legal-political. That is to say, they are agreements that have been made through diplomacy with the political effects that may have a legal influence.

“Under the 1972 European Communities Act they were legal-political, that is to say, they were the law which required enormous political effort to change. So we have much greater flexibility.”

He also took aim at EU officials and their Rejoiner friends in the UK, who contend that the Protocol binds the UK simply by virtue of its signature.

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