Tensions flare in Cabinet over Northern Ireland Protocol legislation - reports

The Financial Times claimed that the Prime Minister had “snapped” at Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, “accusing her of toughening up” the draft legislation “after pressure from Eurosceptic Tory MPs”.

The paper said that the Bill “was now being tweaked to make it less abrasive”.

An earlier report in the Financial Times said the Prime Minister had been warned that plans to rip up the Protocol would provoke a new row with Conservative MPs without necessarily restoring the Stormont executive, and that “party grandees will fight the passage of the bill through parliament”.

The reports came as the government postponed publication of its expected protocol bill.

It emerged last night that the legislation will not be published until next week even though it had been expected to be made public today.

The delay has raised suspicion in unionist ranks that Boris Johnson’s embattled administration is coming under internal pressure not to produce a bill that could further alienate the EU and intensify the civil war within the Tory Party after 148 Conservative MPs backed a no confidence vote against the prime minister on Monday.

See also

Click here: Northern Ireland Protocol: Publication of government legislation put back to next week

Click here: Irish Government ‘ignoring’ and ‘tone deaf’ to unionist concerns over Northern Ireland Protocol, says DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson

Click here: Northern Ireland Protocol frustrations ‘could boil over’ into violence, warns UUP leader Doug Beattie

Click here: On the basis of his own rhetoric, the prime minister must seek reform of the Northern Ireland Protocol