With the Conservatives advising him not to push through a deal on Northern Ireland without the support of the DUP, Rishi Sunak is facing a pivotal week in the Brexit process.
On a deal to update the protocol, the PM is holding lengthy discussions with the EU; it’s possible that an announcement could be made soon.
If Mr. Sunak makes too many concessions, however, with demands that any new conditions be endorsed by unions, he runs the danger of creating a new rift within the Conservative Party.
Ministers have been urged by Boris Johnson and his supporters to go through with legislation that would give the government the authority to unilaterally revoke important facets of the agreement.
No. 10 has refuted the claim that Mr. Sunak is delaying closing a sale while he figures out how to handle the internal demands.
The DUP has warned that it would not accept a settlement that keeps the European Court of Justice’s supervisory function in place. The DUP has been preventing powersharing by refusing to join a Stormont government.
Sammy Wilson, a unionist member of parliament, said he doesn’t think a deal will be reached this week.
“As ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly, we would be required by law to implement that deal and we are not going to do that because we believe such an arrangement is designed to take us out of the United Kingdom and indeed would take us out of the United Kingdom,” he said in an interview with Sky News. “If a deal is agreed upon which still keeps us in the EU single market.”
“We would have to accept to EU regulations that differ from UK laws in an increasing amount, and doing so would isolate our own nation from the UK.”
We expect to be controlled by British law, not EU law, because we are British. We most definitely wouldn’t work together to implement EU legislation in our region of the United Kingdom.
Mr. Wilson was worried that the Government had entered the discussions with “an attitude of defeat” and had given the EU too much ground.
Any agreement with the EU about the Northern Ireland Protocol will fail unless it gets the backing of both unionists and nationalists in the Stormont parliament, senior Tory MP Sir Bernard Jenkin has warned.
‘If it doesn’t gain the backing of both populations in Northern Ireland, it is only going to make things worse,’ said Sir Bernard, a seasoned Euroskeptic, on Times Radio. ‘It will cement in place an arrangement that has shattered power-sharing in Northern Ireland.
I acknowledge that there has been progress in the discussions, and the DUP concurs, but power-sharing and a deal with the EU cannot be reached until certain basic issues are resolved.
I don’t believe he (Rishi Sunak) has any intention of reaching a deal with the EU that would further the demise of power-sharing in Northern Ireland, the man said. That would be devastating in every way.
Simon Clarke, a former cabinet minister, has encouraged the government to go through with legislation that would allow it to ignore several provisions of the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Mr. Clarke supported Boris Johnson’s weekend request to forward the bill, which is presently on hold in the House of Lords, in order to provide ministers a stronger negotiating position with the EU about the protocol.
Giving our negotiators the best possible hand to play with Brussels is strategically essential. Moreover, he said on the BBC Radio 4 Today program that “the protocol law may very well be the clearest solution to address this issue.”
“If there is a notion that the Bill is dead, I’m concerned it will really hurt our position.” We must ensure that any agreement reached here is indeed better than what we can do by amending the protocol with our own laws.
“I believe it is a really high standard because it requires the EU to acknowledge that Northern Ireland cannot be governed by EU law or participate in the single market.” Their action would be significant.
Yesterday, Mr. Sunak’s representatives met with their Brussels counterparts to discuss ways to overcome what unionists refer to as the “democratic gap” by giving local lawmakers more influence over how EU legislation is applied in the area.
In an effort to persuade the main unionist party in Northern Ireland to relinquish its veto on the creation of a power-sharing government in Stormont, Mr. Sunak has emphasized his emphasis on the “democratic gap.”
But, there are rumors that the PM is prepared to go on with a UK-EU agreement even without the DUP’s backing.
Setting a standard that is “not always in the interests of people we are trying to negotiate for” would be “unhelpful,” a Whitehall insider told the Times.
When his predecessor—save for one—made a weekend intervention urging him to adopt a stronger stance with the EU, pressure is rising on Mr. Sunak.
According to a source close to Mr. Johnson, he believes that dropping the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would give the UK the authority to unilaterally rescind some provisions of the treaty, would be a grave error.
A senior government official said that if the verdict was favorable, the contentious legislation—which had been introduced at Westminster under Mr. Johnson’s direction but was put on hold when Mr. Sunak assumed No. 10—would no longer be required.
First speaking out on Brexit since leaving No. 10, Mr. Johnson’s involvement has sparked worries about a possible backbench Conservative uprising if Mr. Sunak’s amendments are put to a vote in Parliament.
Lord Frost, who was involved in the initial Brexit negotiations with Mr. Johnson, encouraged the government to “go on with the Protocol Bill.”
The comments made by Mr. Johnson were criticized by other Conservatives. He was “creating difficulty,” according to the former chancellor George Osborne, because he was “interested in becoming prime minister again.”
The participation of the former premier, according to Commons Leader Penny Mordaunt, was not ‘totally harmful’ since it would’remind the EU’ of the UK’s clout over Brussels.
She also said that the DUP would need to accept any agreement, which is a widely-held belief among Brexit supporters.
Conservative ERG backbenchers are scheduled to gather tomorrow to negotiate potential deals.
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