Breaking silence, Boris Johnson says he would struggle to back new Brexit deal

LONDON, March 2 (Reuters) – British former prime minister said on Thursday he would find it very difficult to vote for a new deal on post-Brexit trade with Northern Ireland, describing the agreement as handing control to the European Union.

In a speech to the Global Soft Power Summit 2023, Johnson broke his silence on the new deal which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has described as historic, one that enables Britain to move on from the Brexit rows that have tainted ties.

But Johnson, whose allies blame Sunak for helping to oust him as prime minister, said the deal did little more than allow the EU to keep its control over Northern Ireland and that the government should have stuck with his plan.

“I’m going to find it very difficult to vote for something like this myself because I believe that we should have done something different,” Johnson said.

“But… we must be clear about what is really going on here. This is not about the UK taking back control … The EU is graciously unbending to allow us to do what we want in our country. Not by our laws, but by theirs.”

Johnson, who was ousted from power in July last year, reiterated his argument that the British government should stick to a bill he introduced that would all but rip up the so-called Northern Ireland protocol, which has now been renegotiated by Sunak to become the Windsor Framework.