UK reserves right to take action on post-Brexit trade problems-PM’s spokesman

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain still wants to reach a negotiated settlement with the European Union to fix post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland but reserves the right to take action, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said on Wednesday.

“Our preference still remains … to reach a negotiated solution but we have been doing this for 16 months and we’ve worked incredibly hard to try and make the protocol in its existing form work,” he told reporters, referring to the Northern Ireland protocol.

“The EU have confirmed they’ll never change their mandate … and so we reserve the right to take further action if solutions can’t be found urgently.”

(Reporting by Alistair Smout, writing by Elizabeth Piper; editing by Michael Holden)