Boris Johnson says NI protocol must be ‘corrected’ as trade with EU slumps – follow live

The majority of Britons believe Brexit has been bad for the economy and trade, according to new polling for The Independent.

The findings offer the first indication that the damage caused by leaving the EU’s single market and customs union in January is cutting through with voters.

Official statistics showed on Friday a precipitous 40.7 per cent fall in goods sales to the EU in January, with experts blaming Brexit for a large chunk of the lost exports.

Boris Johnson has said the Northern Ireland protocol is not operating as he had expected.

The prime minister said he did not think arrangements he agreed with the EU would involve restrictions on the movements of food products such as sausages, on parcel deliveries and on soil from Great Britain entering Northern Ireland.

In a virtual press conference on a visit to the region, Mr Johnson said: “It needs to be corrected, you can’t have a situation in which soil or parcels or tractors with mud on their tyres or whatever are prevented from moving easily from one part of the UK to another – it’s all one United Kingdom.”

Asked about several legal challenges against the protocol, he said: “Before we get to other people’s legal actions against the protocol, what we want to see is to work with our friends in Dublin, in Brussels, to make sure that we iron this thing out, because at the moment it feels to me like it’s not operating in the way that it’s intended to do,” he said.

“It’s there to protect the EU single market but also the UK single market and the Good Friday Agreement, and all we’re looking for is some balance and some common sense.

“There are more immediate ways of addressing the issues with the protocol and more practical and commonsensical ways than doing it through the courts.”