You don’t have to downgrade Maven. What happens here is that since 3.8.1, Maven comes with a default configuration to block all HTTP (insecure) repositories. The best way would be to upgrade your repositories and make them secure (HTTPS).
However, you can tell Maven to allow downloading from your insecure repository by adding this mirror to your ~/.m2/settings.xml:
<mirror>
<id>insecure-repo</id>
<mirrorOf>external:http:*</mirrorOf>
<url>http://www.ebi.ac.uk/intact/maven/nexus/content/repositories/ebi-repo/</url>
<blocked>false</blocked>
</mirror>
Setting blocked to false will fix your issue. Note that above snippet assumes that the repository at www.ebi.ac.uk mirrors all insecure HTTP repositories (which is what external:http:* means).
You can also unblock individual repositories. For example, the JasperSoft repository is insecure, I unblock it with:
<mirror>
<id>jaspersoft-third-party-mirror</id>
<mirrorOf>jaspersoft-third-party</mirrorOf>
<url>http://jaspersoft.jfrog.io/jaspersoft/third-party-ce-artifacts/</url>
<blocked>false</blocked>
</mirror>