Prime Minister Boris Johnson has turned down Brussels’ latest attempt to solve problems with the post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland, insisting that the withdrawal agreement signed last year must be renegotiated.... A series of proposals published by the European Commission on Monday were said to be" not enough" for the scale of the problems.... A UK government spokesperson said the two sides instead needed “ comprehensive and durable solutions ”....

Problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol stem from the relative “ weakness ” of the UK’s position in the Brexit talks with the EU, Boris Johnson’s former chief negotiator has said. Lord Frost, the ex-Brexit minister who negotiated the Withdrawal Agreement, said the arrangements for Northern Ireland would only have worked if the EU’s regulatory framework had not been fully applied.He said the EU’s “ purism ” in the way it was implementing the protocol – which requires customs checks on goods m

On 23 June 2016, the British referendum on the European Union gave a majority of four per cent (52 to 48 per cent) to those who voted to leave. This was a defeat for the British political class which had strongly backed the ‘remain’ campaign.