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2 hours ago, gdevoy said:

I see Mr Poots, the new leader of the DUP has come out with the "we're not looking for trouble but ...." line. Basically threatening the EU that if Belfast burns it will be all their fault. All because the EU are sticking to an agreement reached with the UK prime minister who promised the DUP there would be no checks. 

Thus is going to turn ugly as the EU have no room for manoeuvre as long as the UK wants to leave the single market.

Why exactly would this be an issue for solely the EU though? The UK government were the ones wanting a border along the Irish sea though right? Wouldn't that anger extend the the UK too or what? I know they're loyalists but they have effectively been sold out here.

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1 hour ago, I.am.jambo said:

Why exactly would this be an issue for solely the EU though? The UK government were the ones wanting a border along the Irish sea though right? Wouldn't that anger extend the the UK too or what? I know they're loyalists but they have effectively been sold out here.

Because for the union flag wavers BoJo can do no wrong. 

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Who saw this coming so soon? 

20210602_060906.jpg.e03982821ef914fdded1e6ca9655aa17.jpg

Let's take a moment to appreciate that Tim Martin of Brexitspoons didn't seem to realise his 'empire' was reliant on the free movement of workers? Something that the UK already had control of while the UK was in the EU!

It would be hilarious if it was not so pathetic. 

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3 hours ago, Scooter said:

Who saw this coming so soon? 

20210602_060906.jpg.e03982821ef914fdded1e6ca9655aa17.jpg

Let's take a moment to appreciate that Tim Martin of Brexitspoons didn't seem to realise his 'empire' was reliant on the free movement of workers? Something that the UK already had control of while the UK was in the EU!

It would be hilarious if it was not so pathetic. 

Mr Martin clearly has not grasped the fact that the hardcore of Brexit supporters voted for Brexut to keep out furriners.

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8 hours ago, Scooter said:

Who saw this coming so soon? 

20210602_060906.jpg.e03982821ef914fdded1e6ca9655aa17.jpg

Let's take a moment to appreciate that Tim Martin of Brexitspoons didn't seem to realise his 'empire' was reliant on the free movement of workers? Something that the UK already had control of while the UK was in the EU!

It would be hilarious if it was not so pathetic. 

The guys a tosser like johnson.

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"Free", trade deal with Norway and Iceland trumpeted the other day not as comprehensive as the EEA arrangements. All sounds great on the face of it : oh another free trade deal isnt Brexit wonderful. Would like to see the list of pre Brexit costs and post Brexit costs soon but of course even if there is a negative cost, we have our freedom!

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Still blaming the EU over the NI Protocol.

"Brexit minister accuses EU of 'legal purism' over NI Protocol

The UK's Brexit minister has accused the EU of "legal purism" ahead of a meeting to discuss the NI Protocol.

Lord Frost made the comment in an article for the Financial Times.

In response, Ireland's foreign minister said: "Lord Frost continues to lay blame for difficulty with Protocol at EU inflexibility. This is simply not the case."

Lord Frost is due to meet European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic in London on Wednesday.

The men are due to assess what progress has been made in technical talks aimed at simplifying the operation of the protocol.

Those talks are covering around 30 issues ranging from VAT on used cars, to pet travel and the movement of food products from GB to NI.

UK officials believe that viable solutions are in sight for perhaps two issues, with partial solutions possible in maybe half a dozen other areas.

But the two sides are still far apart on the majority of issues, particularly the possibility of an agri-food agreement.

In his newspaper article, Lord Frost said the UK had "underestimated the effect of the protocol on goods movements to NI, with some suppliers in GB simply not sending their products because of the time-consuming paperwork required."

A UK government impact assessment published shortly after the protocol was agreed in 2019 did say that businesses could expect additional cost and complexity when moving goods from GB to NI.

Lord Frost said in the past week the UK had sent a "detailed proposal" for a veterinary agreement, based on equivalence, and for an authorised trader scheme to reduce paperwork and checks.

But he said "we have had very little back" from the EU.

He added: "The EU needs a new playbook for dealing with neighbours, one that involves pragmatic solutions between friends, not the imposition of one side's rules on the other and legal purism."

In response Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney tweeted: "Lord Frost continues to lay blame for difficulty with Protocol at EU inflexibility. This is simply not the case.

"Maros Sefcovic & EU have consistently proposed new solutions.

"Is this about media messaging in UK or really solving problems together?"

In response to that NI First Minister Arlene Foster, the former leader of the DUP, tweeted that Mr Coveney was "just parroting EU commission briefings" which suggested he was "not so interested" in attempts to find solutions."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57378954

 

 

 

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but was this the plan all along? agree to it then wriggle out of it?

"Brexit: UK government knew NI Protocol 'was a bad deal'

Theresa May's former chief of staff is "pretty sure it's not true" that the government underestimated the impact of the NI Protocol when it agreed to it.

The protocol is the part of the Brexit deal that creates a trade border between Northern Ireland and GB.

Brexit Minister Lord Frost wrote at the weekend that the UK had "underestimated the effect of the protocol on goods movements to Northern Ireland".

But Lord Barwell said Boris Johnson's government "knew it was a bad deal".

They "agreed it to get Brexit done", he argued.

Lord Barwell was Mrs May's senior advisor from 2017 until 2019 and was heavily involved in her Brexit policy.

He added that, in his view, Mr Johnson's government had intended "to wriggle out of" the protocol later.

A UK government impact assessment published shortly after the protocol was agreed in 2019 did say that businesses could expect additional cost and complexity when moving goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

Lord Frost, who negotiated the protocol, wrote in the Financial Times that the UK was implementing it but that the EU needed to show less "legal purism".

He said that in the past week, the UK had sent a "detailed proposal" for a veterinary agreement, based on equivalence, and for an authorised trader scheme to reduce paperwork and checks.

But, he said, "we have had very little back" from the EU.

He added: "The EU needs a new playbook for dealing with neighbours, one that involves pragmatic solutions between friends, not the imposition of one side's rules on the other and legal purism."

Lord Frost is due to meet European Commission Vice-President Maros Sefcovic in London on Wednesday.

The men are due to assess what progress has been made in technical talks aimed at simplifying the operation of the protocol.

Those talks are covering around 30 issues ranging from VAT on used cars, to pet travel and the movement of food products from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

UK officials believe that viable solutions are in sight for perhaps two issues, with partial solutions possible in maybe half a dozen other areas.

But the two sides are still far apart on the majority of issues, particularly the possibility of an agri-food agreement.

Ireland's Foreign Minister Simon Coveney tweeted that Lord Frost had continued to "lay blame for difficulty" with the protocol on EU inflexibility, but that "this is simply not the case".

"Maros Sefcovic & EU have consistently proposed new solutions," he added. "Is this about media messaging in UK or really solving problems together?"

In response to that Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster, the former leader of the DUP, tweeted that Mr Coveney was "just parroting EU commission briefings" which suggested he was "not so interested" in attempts to find solutions."

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-57382239

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Prahakillie said:

but was this the plan all along? agree to it then wriggle out of it?

I am somewhat sceptical of your sugestion that there was originally a "plan" of any sort. 

The current plan seems to be to claim every trade agreement signed as a massive sucess regardless of how insignificant it is and blame the EU for everything negative about Brexit.

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1 hour ago, Prahakillie said:

Still blaming the EU over the NI Protocol.

"Brexit minister accuses EU of 'legal purism' over NI Protocol

Bizarre use of the word purism. Not sure it’s the correct use of the English language in this context, although that limited vocabulary (and a fistfull of prescription drugs) is probably what keeps most people voting Tory. 

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After the great divorce from Brussels there are indeed multiple signs of one side turning its face against the wider world while the other forges ahead as a force for global good. Only events are unfolding the opposite way around from that forecast by Project Fear. While the United Kingdom has just co-ordinated an international agreement to make tech giants pay a fairer share of tax, while pushing for a much more ambitious global Covid vaccination programme and is in the lead on tackling climate change, it is the EU that is failing to adapt to the modern world.

Indeed, its behaviour towards Britain these days resembles one of those US high school movies in which a clique of pupils responds to one of its number daring to do something different by declaring: "You can't be friends with us."

The latest tactic of EU member states is to prepare a "code of conduct" for dealing with Britain to make sure that nobody gets too close.

Reports last week suggested that Brussels is perturbed by the contacts Britain is making with European countries on a bilateral basis. We are offering friendship while they wish to treat us as a pariah.

The real fear in Brussels is that if Brexit Britain proves a roaring success then other countries will start eyeing the EU exit door enviously.

So penalising us has become an end in itself in the eyes of the European Commission. In the spring this was seen in its absurd attempts to prevent EU-based pharmaceutical companies from fulfilling legallybinding contracts with the UK in respect of vaccine supply.

Our vaccines task force, under the direction of the brilliant Kate Bingham, had left their slow and overly-bureaucratic approach exposed to ridicule. So we had to be punished.

Not that it caused us much trouble in the end - after all, Ms Bingham had ensured that we had vaccine supplies to spare.

Far more dangerously, the EU is now seeking to penalise the UK via a draconian approach to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

Its pernickety checks and failure to live up to advance promises of goodwill have caused shortages of some goods in Northern Ireland and stoked fears among the Unionist population that they are being cut adrift from mainland Britain.

Former senior Commission official Martin Selmayr was alleged to have said after the referendum that Northern Ireland was the price that Britain would pay for Brexit. That certainly fits with the posture adopted by Brussels.

As a result, sectarian tensions are rising and there was a large Unionist demonstration against the protocol in the town of Portadown on Saturday.

Ultimitaly, if the EU won't adopt a much lighter-touch approach to checking consignments of goods from the British mainland, then the British government will be fully justified in ditching the protocol on the permitted grounds that it is causing "economic, societal or environmental difficulties".

Many on the UK side now believe the EU is cutting up so rough precisely because Brexit is going so well. UK unemployment has remained low throughout the Covid crisis, with joblessness across the euro area much higher - around eight percent compared to our five percent.

Most economic forecasters now expect the UK to leave the EU trailing in terms of growth. The influential Paris-based OECD last week predicted the British economy will return to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of next year - several months ahead of the likes of France and Spain - and raised its UK growth forecast from 5.1 percent to 7.2 percent.

This week we will see an increasingly confident Boris Johnson leading calls at the G7 summit in Cornwall to get the world vaccinated against Covid by the end of next year and Chancellor Rishi Sunak basking in international congratulations for brokering the Big Tech tax deal. Expectations are also rising for autumn's UN climate change conference in Glasgow. And British trade deals with other countries continue to be struck with impressive regularity.

Rather than cavil at our success or waste time plotting to scupper it, the movers and shakers of the EU should finally come to terms with Brexit and focus on getting their own house in better order. Otherwise they will end up turning "Little Europe" into a laughing stock.

 

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/patrick-o-flynn/1446372/britain-european-union-brexit-last-laugh-comment

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1 hour ago, Killiepies said:

As I said more or less. Claim every irrelevant political pice of UK government poturing is a massive sucess regardless of how insignificant it is and blame the EU for everything negative about Brexit.

Actually if you research anywhere beyondt the Express / Mail / Telegraph you will find the EU vaccination program is going quite well and their death rates make the UK look comparable to India or Peru. 

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29 minutes ago, gdevoy said:

As I said more or less. Claim every irrelevant political pice of UK government poturing is a massive sucess regardless of how insignificant it is and blame the EU for everything negative about Brexit.

Actually if you research anywhere beyondt the Express / Mail / Telegraph you will find the EU vaccination program is going quite well and their death rates make the UK look comparable to India or Peru. 

Death due to Covid however the figures are made up and manipulated , shows there are in fact 13 EU countries with a worse rate than the UK . The UKs isn’t too clever and nothing to boast about tbf but the vaccination programme is an undoubted success which any govt including the Scottish one are repeatedly pointing out . 
 

As for govts pointing out success stories however inconsequential or small , remember it took the Scottish Govt 7 years and several million pounds to turn around Prestwick airport . They couldn’t wait to publicise this and neither should they IMO the UK govt is doing likewise with any new trade deals . It’s what govts do the world over 

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54 minutes ago, Bonbon19 said:

Death due to Covid however the figures are made up and manipulated , shows there are in fact 13 EU countries with a worse rate than the UK . The UKs isn’t too clever and nothing to boast about tbf but the vaccination programme is an undoubted success which any govt including the Scottish one are repeatedly pointing out . 
 

As for govts pointing out success stories however inconsequential or small , remember it took the Scottish Govt 7 years and several million pounds to turn around Prestwick airport . They couldn’t wait to publicise this and neither should they IMO the UK govt is doing likewise with any new trade deals . It’s what govts do the world over 

My point was more that the EU is not doing nearly as badly compared to the UK as the meeja would,like to spin it. They want to paint it as Johnston the hero saves the day when in reality he has made as much of a cockup of it as everyone else. The vaccine rollout is going well, he seems to have got away with nodding it through the approvals  process, the NHS are quite competent at administering it (unlike his buffoon chums he gave the test and trace contract too) and people in the UK trust the NHS so will roll up to get vaccinated. But vaccination is proceeding apace in other EU countries despite the bollox printed in the Torygraph.

The real f**kup Johnston should be held accounrable for is the Brexut clusterf**k which will eventually crash the economy despite the spin in the Torygraph and lead to political instability throughout the UK. 

And I am not too impressed with the competence of the Scottish Government either. Sturgeon seems to be surrounded by some real donkeys.

Edited by gdevoy
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36 minutes ago, gdevoy said:

My point was more that the EU is not doing nearly as badly compared to the UK as the meeja would,like to spin it. They want to paint it as Johnston the hero saves the day when in reality he has made as much of a cockup of it as everyone else. The vaccine rollout is going well, he seems to have got away with nodding it through the approvals  process, the NHS are quite competent at administering it (unlike his buffoon chums he gave the test and trace contract too) and people in the UK trust the NHS so will roll up to get vaccinated. But vaccination is proceeding apace in other EU countries despite the bollox printed in the Torygraph.

The real f**kup Johnston should be held accounrable for is the Brexut clusterf**k which will eventually crash the economy despite the spin in the Torygraph and lead to political instability throughout the UK. 

And I am not too impressed with the competence of the Scottish Government either. Sturgeon seems to be surrounded by some real donkeys.

I agree there is hyperbole from the right wing media but it’s to be expected after all .

Also I don’t think Brexit will crash the UK economy , the right wing will deny it , the left wing enhance it , the truth will be somewhere in the middle . Also define political instability ? 

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13 hours ago, Killiepies said:

After the great divorce from Brussels there are indeed multiple signs of one side turning its face against the wider world while the other forges ahead as a force for global good. Only events are unfolding the opposite way around from that forecast by Project Fear. While the United Kingdom has just co-ordinated an international agreement to make tech giants pay a fairer share of tax, while pushing for a much more ambitious global Covid vaccination programme and is in the lead on tackling climate change, it is the EU that is failing to adapt to the modern world.

Indeed, its behaviour towards Britain these days resembles one of those US high school movies in which a clique of pupils responds to one of its number daring to do something different by declaring: "You can't be friends with us."

The latest tactic of EU member states is to prepare a "code of conduct" for dealing with Britain to make sure that nobody gets too close.

Reports last week suggested that Brussels is perturbed by the contacts Britain is making with European countries on a bilateral basis. We are offering friendship while they wish to treat us as a pariah.

The real fear in Brussels is that if Brexit Britain proves a roaring success then other countries will start eyeing the EU exit door enviously.

So penalising us has become an end in itself in the eyes of the European Commission. In the spring this was seen in its absurd attempts to prevent EU-based pharmaceutical companies from fulfilling legallybinding contracts with the UK in respect of vaccine supply.

Our vaccines task force, under the direction of the brilliant Kate Bingham, had left their slow and overly-bureaucratic approach exposed to ridicule. So we had to be punished.

Not that it caused us much trouble in the end - after all, Ms Bingham had ensured that we had vaccine supplies to spare.

Far more dangerously, the EU is now seeking to penalise the UK via a draconian approach to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol in the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement.

Its pernickety checks and failure to live up to advance promises of goodwill have caused shortages of some goods in Northern Ireland and stoked fears among the Unionist population that they are being cut adrift from mainland Britain.

Former senior Commission official Martin Selmayr was alleged to have said after the referendum that Northern Ireland was the price that Britain would pay for Brexit. That certainly fits with the posture adopted by Brussels.

As a result, sectarian tensions are rising and there was a large Unionist demonstration against the protocol in the town of Portadown on Saturday.

Ultimitaly, if the EU won't adopt a much lighter-touch approach to checking consignments of goods from the British mainland, then the British government will be fully justified in ditching the protocol on the permitted grounds that it is causing "economic, societal or environmental difficulties".

Many on the UK side now believe the EU is cutting up so rough precisely because Brexit is going so well. UK unemployment has remained low throughout the Covid crisis, with joblessness across the euro area much higher - around eight percent compared to our five percent.

Most economic forecasters now expect the UK to leave the EU trailing in terms of growth. The influential Paris-based OECD last week predicted the British economy will return to its pre-pandemic size by the middle of next year - several months ahead of the likes of France and Spain - and raised its UK growth forecast from 5.1 percent to 7.2 percent.

This week we will see an increasingly confident Boris Johnson leading calls at the G7 summit in Cornwall to get the world vaccinated against Covid by the end of next year and Chancellor Rishi Sunak basking in international congratulations for brokering the Big Tech tax deal. Expectations are also rising for autumn's UN climate change conference in Glasgow. And British trade deals with other countries continue to be struck with impressive regularity.

Rather than cavil at our success or waste time plotting to scupper it, the movers and shakers of the EU should finally come to terms with Brexit and focus on getting their own house in better order. Otherwise they will end up turning "Little Europe" into a laughing stock.

 

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/columnists/patrick-o-flynn/1446372/britain-european-union-brexit-last-laugh-comment

Nice balanced view from the former UKIP MEP. ?

 

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2 hours ago, Prahakillie said:

Nice balanced view from the former UKIP MEP. ?

 

The great problem is folk read it and believe the s**t it contains. One of my ex bosses habitually read the Express every day and guess what, he was a rascist sexist pig. 

Fully expecting the WM govt to ramp up tensions which will delight the anti european, anti johnny foreigner Brigade. "Our navy send the Frenchies packing", being a pathetic recent example of the UK propaganda machine in action

 

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2 hours ago, Shropshire_killie said:

The great problem is folk read it and believe the s**t it contains.

 

I think people read it to bolster the beliefs they already have rather than forming their views from reading it. What I am most disapointed about is that almost every print meeja outlet takes the same angle on things. There is nothing out there for people who find this sort of stuff just insults their inteligence.

Even the BBC, which likes to see itself as unbiased, is very royalist / English nationalist. Yeay they are mega "woke" which people seem to conflate with socialism for some reason these days but the two views have little in common. Socialism believes everybody should get a chance, wokeness says everybody should get a prize.   

 

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Sausage wars:

George Eustice, the environment secretary, did an interview round this morning and he claimed the Northern Ireland protocol would make it impossible for traders to sell sausages from Great Britain in Northern Ireland. He told Sky News:

What you have to bear in mind is that the protocol always envisaged that both parties would show best endeavours to make the Northern Ireland protocol work, and that included recognising that Northern Ireland was an integral part of the UK and that you should support the free flow of goods to Northern Ireland.

What we really need the EU to do is to respect that part of the protocol and put in place sensible measures to remove things like the nonsensical ban on selling sausages or chicken nuggets to Northern Ireland – not just requiring paperwork, but actually having an outright ban on some of those goods – that clearly doesn’t make sense.

On the Today programme Eustice said this rule was “bonkers”. And on LBC he described it as a “nonsense”. He said:

I suspect it links to some kind of perception that they can’t really trust any country other than an EU country to make sausages. I think that’s a nonsense. I think we’ve got a very good sausage industry in this country, we’ve got the highest standards of food hygiene in the world.

The UK did, of course, agree to these rules when it signed the protocol. Asked to justify this, Eustice argued that the protocol also included a commitment that both sides would use their best endeavours to ensure goods can flow from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. He said the EU should be more willing to look for solutions. He told the Today programme:

There are lots of ways to give the European Union the assurance that they say they want for their single market, and what we should be doing is working together to identify ways forward. And that’s where the European Union have been quite slow to date to engage.

He also suggested that, if this becomes an issue at this week’s G7 summit, President Biden might side with the UK. Until now Biden has effectively been siding with the EU, warning that Britain’s stance could undermine the Good Friday peace agreement. But Eustice said:

I suspect that any US administration would be amazed if you were to say, for instance, that a sausage from Texas couldn’t be sold to California, there would be an outright ban – they really wouldn’t understand how that could even be contemplated.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2021/jun/08/brexit-eustice-sausages-eu-northern-ireland-protocol-g7-covid-live

 

 

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"

Downing Street accused the EU of adopting a “purist approach” to implementing the Northern Ireland protocol. Asked about the dispute with the EU about the protocol, which has been exacerbated by the UK unilaterally failing to implement some of its obligations under the deal, which governs trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and which is intended to protect the EU single market (which now includes Northern Ireland), the PM’s spokesman said:

 

 

The protocol was a compromise. We didn’t expect the EU to take such a purist approach when implementing it. The protocol itself explicitly says the EU and UK shall use their best endeavours to facilitate the trade between Northern Ireland and other parts of the UK, and that’s the approach we would expect them to take and have been working towards.

Boris Johnson is routinely accused of ignoring rules that he finds inconvenient and one suspects this is a line that he may apply in other areas. For example, on the basis of this report, he might argue that the parliamentary commissioner for standards is applying a “purist approach” to his own declaration about who paid for his Christmas 2018 Caribbean holiday.

The spokesman said there was “no case whatsoever” for the rule saying that from July chilled meats produced in Great Britain should not be sold in Northern Ireland. Asked if the PM agreed with George Eustice, the environment secretary, who this morning described the rule as “bonkers” (see 9.21am), the spokesman said:

 

 

There’s no case whatsoever for preventing chilled meats from being sold to Northern Ireland, and any ban would be contrary to the aims of the protocol and the interests of the people of Northern Ireland ...

We think an urgent solution needs to be found. And obviously there are meetings, starting tomorrow morning. (See 10.06am.)

The spokesman also said the UK had sent more than 10 papers to the European commission proposing “potential solutions on a wide range of issues”, but that it had yet to receive a written response.

Even though No 10 now says there is no case for this rule, the government did agree to it when it signed the protocol. (See 12.12pm.)

The spokesman did not rule out the UK deciding to unilaterally extend the exemption for chilled meats under the protocol that is due to lapse at the end of June. Asked if the UK might unilaterally extend this (which would be in defiance of the agreement), the spokesman said:

 

We’re working very hard to try and resolve these issues consensually and we’re looking forward to the joint committee tomorrow.

The prime minister has always made clear we will consider all our options in meeting our responsibility to sustain peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland."

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