Live updates: Britain’s hopes of early post-Brexit trade deal with US appear dashed; Biden tells Johnson trade tensions must not threaten peace in Northern Ireland.
Grant Shapps, the transport secretary, has announced that National Highways have been granted a court injunction against environmental protesters. That means activists who block roads could face jail.
Good morning. Yesterday Joe Biden told Boris Johnson at the White House about his concerns that the UK’s stance on the Northern Ireland protocol could undermine the Good Friday agreement. It is a concern shared by Democrats and Republicans in Washington, and one that has been expressed many times. Johnson told Biden diplomatically that he too wanted to protect the Good Friday agreement. But in an interview this morning George Eustice, the environment secretary, said that Biden was “wrong” about this, and he implied the US president did not understand the issue.
[Biden] is probably at the moment just reading the headlines, reading what the EU is saying, reading what Ireland might be saying, which is that they would like the Northern Ireland protocol to work in the way the EU envisage.
We think he is wrong because the truth is that unless we have a sustainable solution that enables trade to continue between GB and Northern Ireland then we are going to have issues, and that itself would become a challenge to the Belfast agreement.