Johnson shies away from escalating Brexit row

Bloomberg

The UK’s desire to rewrite the Northern Ireland protocol was absent in detail from the Queen’s Speech, amid reports that domestic legislation is being prepared to override large chunks of the Brexit deal.
While the UK repeated its warning that it will take necessary steps to address problems caused by the protocol, no named bill or signal of future legislation was included in the speech, which sets out the government’s agenda for the next parliamentary session.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party said it won’t join a new government with the nationalists Sinn Fein following last week’s election until decisive action is taken by the UK on the protocol.
Under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement the posts of first minister and deputy first minister — effectively one nationalist and one unionist — are equal and one cannot be in place without the other.
The protocol is the biggest outstanding issue resulting from Britain’s split with the EU. The UK has long threatened to tear up the post-Brexit settlement, which saw the creation of an effective customs border between the region and the rest of the UK, but are yet to follow through on their threats.
The European Union’s top negotiator on Northern Ireland, Maros Sefcovic, also said he would be keeping an eye on what was said in the Queen’s Speech.
Despite not being detailed in the State Opening of Parliament, the Times of London reported that Foreign Secretary Liz Truss will move as soon as next week to scrap large parts of the protocol in British law after losing faith in the negotiations.
The draft legislation would unilaterally remove the need for checks on goods being sent from Britain to Northern Ireland and would allow businesses to disregard EU rules, the newspaper said.
“In the interests of all communities of Northern Ireland, the Protocol needs to change,” the UK said in the Queen’s Speech.
“We urge our partners in the EU to work with us, with new imagination and flexibility, to deliver that.”