Foreign Secretary Liz Truss 'willing' to trigger Article 16 if Brexit negotiations fail

Liz Truss has warned she is willing to trigger Article 16 – unilaterally overriding parts of the post-Brexit agreement on Northern Ireland – if the negotiations she is now leading fail.

However, the foreign secretary said she will suggest “constructive proposals” to her EU counterpart, Maros Sefcovic this week during their first face-to-face talks in a bid to “resolve the situation”.

Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, she said she remains “willing” to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland protocol if needed.

What is Article 16 and why did the EU make a U-turn after triggering it?

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This would suspend parts of the treaty designed to prevent a hard border with the Republic of Ireland if a deal cannot be struck.

Ms Truss wrote in the Sunday paper: “My priority is to protect peace and stability in Northern Ireland. I want a negotiated solution but if we have to use legitimate provisions including Article 16, I am willing to do that.

“This safeguard clause was explicitly designed – and agreed to by all sides – to ease acute problems because of the sensitivity of the issues at play.

Article 16: Boris Johnson warned against suspending post-Brexit border arrangements for Northern Ireland

“The EU has already invoked this article to introduce a hard border for vaccine exports and, even in the act of withdrawing it, insisted on its right to do so again in the future.”

Ms Truss was handed responsibility for the negotiations last month after Lord Frost resigned as Brexit minister.

She said the current issues are “myriad and manifest” – citing the bureaucracy faced when sending parcels between Britain and Northern Ireland and problems procuring kosher food.

“But let me be clear, I will not sign up to anything which sees the people of Northern Ireland unable to benefit from the same decisions on taxation and spending as the rest of the UK, or which still sees goods moving within our own country being subject to checks,” she said.

Last week, Mr Sefcovic warned that “the foundation of the entire deal” brokered between the UK and the EU would be jeopardised if Ms Truss triggered Article 16.

“This is a very distracting element in the discussions. You try to achieve something together and – bam – there’s the threat of Article 16 again,” he told German newspaper Der Spiegel.

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“It touches on the fundamentals of our relationship.

“The Northern Ireland Protocol was the most complicated part of the Brexit negotiations, and it is the foundation of the entire deal. Without the protocol, the whole system will collapse. We must prevent that at any cost.”

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