The Internal Market Bill could damage the relationship between the UK's four nations. So say the archbishops of York and Canterbury and the heads of the Church in Scotland, Wales and Ireland.

The bill sets out rules for the operation of trade in the UK internal market after the end of the Brexit transition period in January 2021.

The bill would allow aspects of the EU Withdrawal Agreement to be superseded.

Opponents argue that it breaks international law and have vowed to stop or amend it.

The five Anglican bishops warn any breach could undermine peace in Northern Ireland.

"We believe this would create a disastrous precedent.

It is particularly disturbing for all of us who feel a sense of duty and responsibility to the Good Friday (Belfast) Agreement - that international treaty on which peace and stability within and between the UK and Ireland depends.

The UK negotiated the Northern Ireland Protocol with the EU to "protect the 1998 Agreement in all its dimensions."

The Anglican bishops warn that the bill "currently asks the country's highest law making body to equip a government minister to break international law. This has enormous moral, as well as political and legal, consequences."

A number of Tory MPs have criticised the intervention. However, Archbishop McDowell told BBC Radio 4's Today church leaders had a role to play in maintaining the "civic dialogue." This was an essential part of a healthy democracy.

"Pretty much every political act, and every piece of legislation or social policy, has an ethical element to it," he said.

A total of 113 peers are discussing the bill this week in the House of Lords. The Archbishop of Canterbury is one of 113 peers due to speak in the two-day second reading debate.

Sources

• Independent Catholic News
• BBC
• CruxNow

The Agreement committed Northern Ireland's political parties to resolving political issues by democratic and peaceful methods.

Speaking on the Agreement's 20th anniversary, the Catholic Church Primates of All Ireland say it "took a great effort to achieve".

It "will equally take risk and leadership at all levels to maintain," they say.

The Agreement included establishing a power-sharing government involving parties representing the majority Protestant population and minority Catholic population and removing border security between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

It also led to decommissioning the Irish Republican Army and Protestant paramilitary organisations' weapons.

The Agreement explicitly rejects using or threatening violence and emphasises the principles of "partnership, equality and mutual respect" as the "basis of relationships".

Catholic Archbishop of Armagh, Eamon Martin, and his Church of Ireland counterpart, Archbishop Richard Clarke, say the Agreement has continuing potential to transform society and life for all.

"Nothing remotely its equal has been outlined then or since," they said.

They both pray the Agreement's anniversary will help "rekindle a spirit of opportunity, healing and hope for lasting peace" which they say is needed more than ever.

They are calling on all people of good will to be ambassadors of reconciliation, helping to rebuild trust and mutual respect.

Martin and Clarke are concerned about a political impasse in Northern Ireland that has continued since January 2017.

It concerns the collapse of the power-sharing government in Stormont, which collapsed over a row between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn Féin.

They are challenging the institutions to ask themselves "is it because the principles and structure of the Good Friday Agreement have failed us, or rather, is it that we have together failed to make the most of those supportive principles which it offered?"

They paid tribute to the efforts of the international community who not only invested significantly in the process which led to the Agreement, but who "have remained alongside us as our partners for peace."

Source

• The Tablet
• Crux Now
• Image: Catholic Ireland