As prime minister, Boris Johnson does not follow the normal rules. To put it mildly. And this year’s Queen’s Speech, announcing his legislative programme for the coming parliamentary session, is no exception. That’s because probably the most important piece of planned legislation, a new law to waive parts of the contentious Northern Ireland Protocol, is not mentioned, even though it almost certainly will be announced at the end of this week (and by the Prime Minister).
The reason this matters is because there is a constitutional crisis in Northern Ireland following last week’s elections to its Assembly. The runners up in the election, the unionist DUP, won’t allow the NI executive or government to be formed unless and until the Protocol is binned.
Johnson is planning to say, as I understand it, that the UK government will use powers in legislation to breach its treaty obligations under the NI Protocol. It will suspend all those border checks on goods flowing from Great Britain to Northern Ireland which were such an important part of its Brexit deal with the EU.
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