Boris Johnson suffered a blow yesterday as the House of Lords passed an amendment to tweak the Internal Market Bill
The vote went through 433-165, with the amendment seeking to remove measures that would override parts of the UK's Brexit withdrawal agreement with the EU.
A second vote also saw the government defeated 407-148, on stripping out Clause 44 of the bill and inserting a new clause to establish that goods from Northern Ireland would not be discriminated against in the operation of the UK market.
The bill now returns back to the Commons but the government has insisted that they will retable the same clauses again, after the following statement:
We are disappointed that the House of Lords has voted to remove clauses from the UK internal market bill, which was backed in the House of Commons by 340 votes to 256 and delivers on a clear Conservative manifesto commitment.
We will retable these clauses when the bill returns to the Commons.
We've been consistently clear that the clauses represent a legal safety net to protect the integrity of the UK's internal market and the huge gains of the peace process.
We expect the House of Lords to recognise that we have an obligation to the people of Northern Ireland to make sure they continue to have unfettered access to the UK under all circumstances.
What is the impact here on Brexit negotiations?
In a sense, this sort of removes one of Johnson's cards in the poker game. This has been an issue that the EU has been complaining about since the end of September, arguing that it has damaged trust between the two sides in the negotiating process.
The bill being rejected by the Lords should keep the peace in negotiations this week but if Johnson insists that this is still the only way forward, then it is doubtful that there would be much of a compromise from the UK camp. But we'll see.
