UK to introduce law unilaterally changing post-Brexit rules

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s government is expected to introduce legislation Monday that would unilaterally change post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland amid opposition from lawmakers who believe the move violates international law.

The legislation would let the government bypass the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol, which requires the inspection of some goods shipped there from other parts of the United Kingdom. The protocol, designed to preserve free trade on the island of Ireland, is part of the broader trade deal that Prime Minister Boris Johnson negotiated with the European Union when Britain left the 27-nation bloc.

But the arrangement has proved politically damaging for Johnson because it treats Northern Ireland differently from the rest of the United Kingdom, potentially weakening the province’s historic links with Britain. Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party has refused to return to the region’s power-sharing government until the protocol is amended to address those concerns.

The opposition Labour Party, and even some members of Johnson’s Conservatives, say unilaterally changing the protocol would be illegal and would damage Britain’s standing with other countries because its part of a treaty considered binding under international law.

“Breaking international law to rip up the Prime Minister’s own treaty is damaging to everything the U.K. and Conservatives stand for,” opponents of the bill said in a note being circulated among Conservative lawmakers, according to the Financial Times.

Arrangements for Northern Ireland — the only part of the U.K. that shares a land border with an EU nation — have proved the thorniest issue in Britain’s divorce from the bloc, which became final at the end of 2020.

The 1998 Good Friday agreement that ended decades...