Brexit: Michael Ellis slams Labour's 'relentless negativity'
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Ahead of a meeting of UK and EU officials to discuss the Brexit deal’s protocol to avoid a hard border, it has emerged that the bloc has developed a strategy to counter Downing Street’s hardline approach to the talks. If Boris Johnson decides to trigger Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol to override EU-ordered trade checks, eurocrats will challenge that effort in a legal battle. EU diplomats have suggested this could also include slapping punitive tariffs on British products shipped to the bloc in retaliation.
The European Commission was said to be preparing a “twin-track” approach to deal with a British attempt to scrap the post-Brexit border fix.
It was reported that eurocrats do not believe there is a legal justification for Downing Street to take the nuclear option and blow up the divorce deal.
A source told RTE: “The Commission is internally of the view that Article 16 could happen at any time, that it hasn’t gone way, that it’s a very serious possibility.”
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