Law and Order - 2020 style

Can it really be true? Has the government of the UK decided not to honour an international treaty that it itself signed not many months ago? We are told that the key aim of the new bill, published yesterday, is to ‘ensure peace in Northern Ireland’. But what has changed since the government signed the withdrawal treaty? If it prejudices safety now, why did it not then?
 
Is the UK now destined to become a pariah state? How on earth is any other country going to commit itself to a trade deal—or any other agreement—with us, when our government, at will, chooses to disregard its international obligations? And what sort of response might we expect when we start lecturing Russia, or China, or Iran, or North Korea on their disregard for international law?
 
I had thought that Johnson’s government had sunk low—count the ‘U’ turns this year—but this takes us into the gutter.

Note added 12 September. Even the Daily Telegraph sounds a real note of caution in its editorial today. If Johnson has succeeded in upsetting that newspaper, things really must be serious.