Michael Gove has defended plans to override parts of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement as a means of protecting the "integrity" of the UK.

The bill, which will be formally debated in the House of Commons for the first time on Monday, addresses the Northern Ireland Protocol - the part of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement designed to prevent a hard border returning to the island of Ireland.

If this became law it would give UK ministers powers to modify or "disapply" rules relating to the movement of goods between Britain and Northern Ireland that will come into force from 1 January, if the UK and EU are unable to strike a trade deal.

Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis told the Commons the bill, which would go against the Withdrawal Agreement signed by the UK and EU, would "break international law in a very specific and limited way".

Mr Gove said: "These steps are a safety net, they're a long-stop in the event, which I don't believe will come about but we do need to be ready for, that the EU follow through on what some have said they might do which is, in effect, to separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom.".

The EU says the planned changes must be scrapped or they risk jeopardising the UK-EU trade talks and the European Parliament says will "under no circumstances ratify" any trade deal reached between the UK and EU if the "UK authorities breach or threaten to breach" the Withdrawal Agreement.

Writing that it had become clear there might be a "serious misunderstanding" between the UK and EU over the Withdrawal Agreement, Mr Johnson said the UK must be protected from what he called a "disaster" of the EU being able to "carve up our country" and "endanger peace and stability in Northern Ireland"

But in a column in the Daily Telegraph, he accused the EU of adopting an "extreme" interpretation of the Northern Ireland Protocol to impose "a full-scale trade border down the Irish Sea" that could stop the transport of food from Britain to Northern Ireland