Northern Ireland’s 24-year-old peace deal is “on life support” because of wranglings over Brexit border arrangements, Boris Johnson ’s ex-chief EU negotiator warned today.
Lord David Frost issued the alert eight days before crunch elections in the province could make nationalists Sinn Fein the biggest party.
Such a result would unleash fresh political turmoil.
Lord Frost called for the UK to renegotiate the Northern Ireland Protocol, which is designed at preventing a hard border with the Republic along the 310-mile frontier - the UK's only land boundary with the EU.
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Unionists say a border has effectively been created in the Irish Sea, hampering trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland because of checks on some goods.
Experts fear it jeopardises the fragile 1998 Belfast/Good Friday Agreement, which brought an end to The Troubles.
Lord Frost called on the Prime Minister to trigger Article 16 - suspending the arrangement - unless a solution can be found.
Speaking to the centre-right think tank Policy Exchange, the Tory peer said: “We are where we are, we have to face the fact that we are in a very serious situation.
“It’s pretty clear, and I think serious commentators agree, that the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement is on life support.
“It’s difficult to see the results from next week’s elections doing very much to help.
“This matters because, to state the obvious, the purpose of the Protocol is to protect the Belfast Agreement - that was the understood objective of the negotiators on both sides.”
Problems have mounted with the Protocol since the UK formally quit the bloc in January 2020.
The system effectively keeps the province in the EU single market but creates a trade barrier in the Irish Sea for goods crossing from Great Britain – something Mr Johnson previously promised he would never agree to.
Both London and Brussels have outlined plans for improving how the Protocol operates.
The Government is seeking substantial changes, arguing the current system damages community relations.
Lord Frost said: “The inability to reach a durable Protocol settlement means that a huge - indeed an unbearable, amount of weight - has been put on Northern Ireland's fragile politics as a result.
"Those politics may now be reaching breaking point and they are making the current arrangements unworkable.”
The former Brexit Minister, who is still close to the PM, signalled Mr Johnson could be ready to trigger Article 16.
“If the EU is not willing to work with us to improve the Protocol, then Her Majesty’s Government has no choice but to act unilaterally,” he said.
“Personally I have never had any difficulty with doing so at the right moment - nor, I believe, has the Prime Minister.
“One option would be to act in a fairly limited way to remove the current pressure points, first by using Article 16.”
Mr Johnson has publicly kept open the option of invoking the clause.
Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions today, he said: “There is clearly an economic cost to the Protocol and it’s also now turning to a political problem and an imbalance in sentiment.
“We need to rectify that balance for the sake of the Good Friday Agreement on which this country depends.”
Mr Johnson has not ruled out a new law which would give UK ministers powers to override the Protocol, after reports draft legislation could be published next month.
