LONDON: Prime Minister Boris Johnson accused the European Union on Monday of threatening to break up the United Kingdom, as he urged lawmakers to back a controversial bill to override parts of the Brexit treaty struck with Brussels only last year.
He was speaking ahead of the first vote by MPs on the UK Internal Market Bill, which has sparked threats of legal action in Brussels and outrage at home as it overtly seeks to breach international law.
Addressing the House of Commons, Johnson claimed the EU was using arrangements in the Brexit deal meant to protect peace in Northern Ireland as "leverage" in ongoing trade talks.
"They are threatening to carve tariff borders across our own country, divide our own land, change the very economic geography of the UK," he said.
Johnson said the new bill would "create a legal safety net" by allowing ministers to overrule parts of the Brexit deal to "guarantee the integrity of our United Kingdom".
The EU has demanded the bill be withdrawn before the end of the month, insisting angrily that Britain must uphold its commitments.
The row has soured relations as both sides race to sign a new trade agreement before the end of the year, raising the possibility of a deeply disruptive break after four decades of integration.
The bill has also provoked threats of rebellions and resignations among Johnson's own Conservative MPs, while all Britain's living former prime ministers warned he risked trashing the country's international reputation.
Johnson acknowledged on Monday that "some people will feel unease over the use of these powers - and I share that sentiment myself". He said the powers to override the Brexit treaty would not be needed if an EU trade deal was agreed.
"But what we cannot do now is tolerate a situation where our EU counterparts seriously believe that they have the power to break up our country," he said.
"That illusion must be decently despatched."
The UK parliament spent years engaged in bitter battles over how to leave the EU following the shock 2016 referendum vote - much of it arguing over the arrangements for Northern Ireland.
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