Brexit
Ex-Johnson Adviser: Wanted to Break Northern Ireland Protocol
Last year there was a rift between British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his ex-advisor Dominic Cummings. Photo: Yui Mok / PA Wire / dpa
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The Northern Ireland dispute was a key point in the Brexit consultations between London and Brussels. Now Dominic Cummings, the ex-chief advisor to Boris Johnson, reveals his real intentions.
The former chief advisor to British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Dominic Cummings, said he never intended to comply with the Brexit agreements with the EU on Northern Ireland.
The plan was to reach an agreement in the exit talks with Brussels in order to win the 2019 general election and then “get rid of the parts that we don’t like,” wrote the once second most powerful man in the London seat of government Downing Street on Twitter.
The British Brexit Minister David Frost had previously called for the EU to replace the Northern Ireland Protocol, which he negotiated less than two years ago, with a new agreement. “The protocol is not working,” said Frost, threatening to partially override the agreement through an emergency mechanism. However, he stressed that despite doubts, the UK government had initially attempted to implement the protocol.
“He has to say that!” Cummings commented on Frost’s assurances that the agreement was signed in good faith. In any case, he had never intended to keep the agreement. Cummings, who left the government in a dispute at the end of last year, could not resist a swipe at his former boss Johnson: Johnson had “obviously never understood what the hell was going on”.
Cummings is considered to be the brain behind the successful campaign by Brexit supporters in the 2016 EU referendum and the overwhelming victory of Johnson and his Conservatives in the 2019 general election. However, last year there was a rift with the prime minister. Since then, the former chief advisor has hardly missed an opportunity to portray the government in a bad light.