Simply forget any UK-US trade deal if Britain kills off Brexit protocol, warns political heavyweight Nancy Pelosi
US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has said it is “deeply concerning” the UK Government is seeking to “unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland Protocol”, adding that doing so will result in Congress not supporting a free trade agreement with the UK.
The congresswoman said on Twitter: “It is deeply concerning that the United Kingdom now seeks to unilaterally discard the Northern Ireland Protocol, which preserves the important progress and stability forged by the Accords. It continues to enjoy strong bipartisan & bicameral support in the United States Congress.
“As I have stated in my conversations with the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary & Members of the House of Commons, if the United Kingdom chooses to undermine the Good Friday Accords, the Congress cannot & will not support a bilateral free trade agreement with the UK.”
Pelosi’s comments come after the EU’s ambassador to the UK Joao Vale de Almeida said the row over the Northern Ireland Protocol was having an “excessively negative” impact on the overall relationship between Westminster and Brussels.
“My hope is that we can very soon overcome this situation where we are today,” he told reporters in Westminster.
“If I look at the wider picture of our relationship, our problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol have an excessively negative impact on the quality of our overall relationship and we need to overcome this situation.”
Boris Johnson has insisted of his plans for the protocol “we don’t want to nix it, we want to fix it”.
But the ambassador said: “It’s not very reassuring if you go into a negotiation where you are presented with two options – either renegotiation or unilateral action to override the treaty.
“This is not the best way to fix, this is rather a way maybe to nix.
“So if we want to fix it, which is what we want and I understand this is what the Government wants as well, we need to create a better atmosphere.”