London (AFP)

In the face of skepticism from his own party, Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday defended his intention to partially reverse the Brexit deal amid the "threat" that the EU will establish a "food blockade" in Northern Ireland, throwing fuel the fire before new negotiations in Brussels.

While these negotiations to avoid a "no deal" on January 1 remain at an impasse, London has blamed Brussels for the origin of the dispute which aggravated a new negotiating session last week and throws a veil over those planned for this week.

The discord erupted when the British government presented a bill to Parliament on Wednesday that partly contradicts the already signed agreement framing its exit from the EU - a move in violation of international law, admitted Boris Johnson, but to which he says to have been coerced.

"We are now being told that if we do not accept the terms of the EU, the EU will use an extreme interpretation of the Northern Ireland Protocol to impose a full trade border there" between the province and the rest of the kingdom , justified the Prime Minister in a text published by the Daily Telegraph, while he faces criticism within his own camp.

"We are told that the EU will not only impose tariffs on goods in transit from Britain to Northern Ireland, but that it may in fact stop the transport of food from Great Britain. Brittany to Northern Ireland ", he continues.

"I have to say that we never seriously believed that the EU would be able to use a treaty, negotiated in good faith, to blockade part of the UK or that they would actually threaten to destroy our economic integrity. and territorial ", accuses the Conservative Prime Minister.

- "Ridiculous" -

"It's ridiculous. Mr Johnson insists on having the butter and the money of the butter," Spanish MEP Luis Garicano told the BBC on Saturday, stressing that the provisions concerning Northern Ireland were present in the agreement that the Prime Minister signed in January.

According to a report published on Saturday morning by the Financial Times, several British officials had indeed warned Boris Johnson in January that the Brexit agreement he was about to sign carried this type of risk.

The EU fears that the post-Brexit UK may lower its own food standards, as well as rules on state aid to businesses, while still having access to the European single market through Northern Ireland.

The question of this British province was for a long time one of the sticking points of the Brexit negotiations, London fearing the return to a physical border on the island of Ireland, bloodied by three decades of "Troubles" until the signing of the Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1998.

The text finally signed provided for the British province to remain subject to certain European provisions for four years, in particular concerning trade.

But with the controversial bill being considered by British MPs on Monday, London will be able to unilaterally take trade decisions in that province, contrary to what was initially agreed.

Boris Johnson's op-ed comes as he faces much criticism from his own camp, with some rebel MPs voicing their discomfort in a chaotic virtual meeting on Friday, threatening not to vote on the text.

"We cannot leave the theoretical power to divide our country in the hands of an international organization", explained Boris Johnson in the British newspaper, affirming for the deputies that it was "vital" to adopt the project of law to "end this possibility".

This call for unity, the Prime Minister fearing to relive in Parliament the internal struggles and paralysis of 2019, did not convince Conservative MP Robert Neill.

Going back on what has already been signed "is a potentially harmful act for our country," the MP said on British channel Channel 4. "It would damage our reputation and make it more difficult to conclude future trade deals," he said. he ruled, despite the signing of a post-Brexit trade agreement with Japan on Friday.

© 2020 AFP