Boris Warns EU: We'll Act If You Don't Change

PM threatens to tear apart Brexit deal unless Brussels accepts 'sensible' reform

- Martyn Brown

BORIS Johnson vows he will rip up the Brexit deal within days unless EU chiefs agree to "sensible” changes in the row over customs checks.

The PM said there “will be a necessity to act” if Brussels fails to reform the Northern Ireland trade rules.

Mr Johnson is due to visit the province today in the midst of the crisis sparked by tensions over the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Ministers are ready to unilaterally set aside the agreement which keeps Northern Ireland aligned with the EU single market for goods, in a bid to settle a long dispute over the arrangement. The current crisis centres on the loyalist DUP refusing to reenter a power-sharing executive at Stormont without "decisive action” from UK ministers.

Mr Johnson said in the Belfast Telegraph that many things have changed since the protocol was agreed: “It was designed before a global pandemic and a European war which has created a cost-of-living crisis on a scale not seen for half a century."

The Prime Minister challenged Brussels to accept that changes can be made: “We have been told by the EU that it is impossible to make the changes to the protocol text to actually solve these problems in negotiations - because there is no mandate to do so.

“We will always keep the door wide open to genuine dialogue. And we will continue to protect the single market - as it has been protected throughout the existence of the protocol so far - and the open border with the Republic of Ireland which will always be of paramount importance.

“There is without question a sensible landing spot in which everyone's interests are protected.