Johnson Accuses EU of Plotting Food 'Blockade'

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has accused the European Union of threatening to tear the UK apart by imposing a food "blockade" between Britain and Northern Ireland, throwing new fuel on the fire of simmering Brexit talks. Writing in Saturday's Daily Telegraph newspaper, Johnson said the EU's stance justified his government's introduction of new legislation to rewrite its Brexit withdrawal treaty, which bill is causing deep alarm among former prime ministers and his own MPs, AFP reported. Talks between London and Brussels on a future trading relationship are deadlocked, as both sides struggle to prise apart nearly 50 years of economic integration, after British voters opted for a divorce. "My assessment is that an unregulated situation [no deal] would have very significant consequences for the British economy," German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz warned after an EU meeting in Berlin. "Europe would be able to deal with it and these would not be particularly difficult consequences after the preparations we have already made," he added.