Rishi Sunak's new deal will 'finish the job and ensure Brexit works'

2023-02-26

Rishi Sunak ‘has won big concessions from the EU’ and new deal will ‘finish the job and ensure Brexit works’, PM claims as he is poised to sign agreement with Brussels – despite warnings it could spark Tory civil war

EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to travel to the UK on Monday
She is set to shake hands with Rishi Sunak on post-Brexit trading arrangements
The meeting over Northern Ireland trade agreements will take place in Windsor

Rishi Sunak is poised to sign a new Brexit deal with Brussels today, despite warnings it could trigger another Tory civil war.

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to the UK on Monday morning to meet the Prime Minister and shake hands on a new deal over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland.

The commission said the meeting will take place in Windsor, raising the prospect that Mrs von der Leyen may also hold talks with King Charles.

Unionists and some Tory MPs warned at the weekend against any move that would risk dragging the monarch into the contentious politics of Brexit.

Downing Street insisted that negotiations were still continuing last night after the PM and Mrs von der Leyen held talks by phone yesterday.

Mr Sunak has said the deal ‘will show that Brexit truly works and will finish the job’, adding: ‘This deal will work better for business and communities and get goods moving. It will resolve the issues so we can all move forward. This will give Northern Ireland control of their own destiny. This is something very positive.’

Government sources have also claimed the deal includes ‘significant and far reaching’ concessions which will safeguard Northern Ireland and it’s place in the United Kingdom.

One cabinet minister has claimed the deal is better than ‘any of [Sunak’s] predecessors got.’

Mr Sunak thrashed out the final details of a ‘Stormont lock’ designed to give Northern Ireland a say – but not a veto – over new EU trade laws that will continue to apply

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen will travel to the UK on Monday to meet the Prime Minister and shake hands on a new deal over post-Brexit trading arrangements for Northern Ireland

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said Mr Sunak was ‘on the cusp’ of a deal that would result in the ‘substantial scaling back’ of the role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland

But barring a last-minute hitch, a deal is expected today. It came as:

Mr Sunak thrashed out the final details of a ‘Stormont lock’ designed to give Northern Ireland a say – but not a veto – over new EU trade laws that will continue to apply;

The Prime Minister held private talks in No 10 with Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker, who has been placed on ‘resignation watch’ by Tory whips;

Downing Street refused to say whether MPs would be given a vote on the deal;

A survey by the Conservative Home website found that Tory activists oppose Mr Sunak’s plan by 41 per cent to 36;

Former Brexit minister Lord Frost urged the PM to revive the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, saying it was vital to be ‘really tough’ with Brussels;

The European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs said it would establish a ‘star chamber’ of lawyers to examine whether the new deal meets their sovereignty tests;

Senior Democratic Unionist Party MP Sammy Wilson said it was a ‘red line’ for his party that ‘there should be no EU law applying to this part of the UK’.

Cabinet ministers, who will be formally briefed on the plans this afternoon, were last night ringing round Conservative MPs to shore up support.

The commission said the meeting will take place in Windsor, raising the prospect that Mrs von der Leyen may also hold talks with King Charles

Downing Street insisted that negotiations were still continuing last night after the PM and Mrs von der Leyen held talks by phone yesterday

What is the Brexit row about and what has been the impact on Northern Ireland?

The UK and the EU have been engaged in substantive negotiations over the workings of the Northern Ireland Protocol of the original withdrawal agreement that allowed the UK to leave the EU.

It was designed to ensure the free movement of goods across the Irish land border with Ulster after Brexit.

Rather than being an internal EU line between two countries, with Brexit it became a border between the bloc and a third party country with different customs and trade rules.

In any other cases it would be solved simply by creating a ‘hard’ border – physical checks on vehicles and people travelling between the two.

But the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of violence in 1998, expressly prohibits a return to such checkpoints on the island of Ireland.

To get around this the protocol instead created economic barriers on trade being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

It has proven to be deeply unpopular with unionists, who claim it has weakened Northern Ireland’s place within the UK.

Last year the DUP collapsed the powersharing institutions at Stormont in protest at the arrangements. It came as the party was replaced as the largest in the powersharing government by Sinn Fein for the first time.

And the DUP is refusing to back a deal and restart powersharing unless their concerns are realised. They have set seven tests that it must pass to be approved.

Mr Sunak is expected to unveil the details in a statement to Parliament this afternoon. And preparations are even being made for a joint press conference with Mrs von der Leyen.

The Prime Minister will tell MPs that his deal will secure Northern Ireland’s place in the Union and protect the future of the Good Friday Agreement.

It is expected to lead to the scrapping of a barrage of EU checks on goods sent to the province from the rest of the UK, which have caused major problems for businesses and families, and led to unionist fears that Northern Ireland could be forced out of the UK.

Mr Raab said the deal would mark a ‘paradigm shift’ in relations and ‘would be very good news for the communities of Northern Ireland and I think for the Good Friday Agreement as well’.

Ministers are optimistic that they can win over most Eurosceptic Tory MPs with a deal which Mr Raab said would ‘properly and fully get Brexit done’ and open the door to warmer relations with the EU.

But senior figures in the DUP warned that they were not yet convinced the deal would deliver enough to persuade them to re-enter power-sharing in Northern Ireland, a key objective of the PM.

And some Tory Eurosceptics said they would struggle to support a deal that was not supported by the DUP and which left the EU with a toehold in the UK.

In an ominous intervention last week, Boris Johnson told the PM that the ‘best way forward’ would be to take unilateral legal powers to scrap the EU’s trade checks in Northern Ireland.

Mr Sunak yesterday said he was ‘giving it everything we’ve got’ to get a deal.

In an interview with the Sunday Times, the PM said his new agreement was not a threat to Brexit but about ‘making sure Brexit works in every part of the UK’.

Last night, neither No 10 nor Buckingham Palace would comment on whether the King would meet Mrs von der Leyen today.

Details of a planned meeting on Saturday, which was cancelled for ‘operational reasons’, raised concerns that No 10 was hoping to give the deal the impression of royal approval to head off opposition.

The Mail on Sunday revealed yesterday that the King’s first overseas trip will be to Berlin and Paris, in a break from the tradition of using the inaugural visit to travel to a Commonwealth country.

Jacob Rees-Mogg said it would be ‘wrong if Downing Street has applied pressure on the King’ over a highly political issue. And Mr Wilson warned No 10 against a ‘cynical use’ of the King’s position.

In an ominous intervention last week, Boris Johnson told the PM that the ‘best way forward’ would be to take unilateral legal powers to scrap the EU’s trade checks in Northern Ireland

Mr Sunak is expected to unveil the details in a statement to Parliament on Monday afternoon

Mr Sunak’s deal will create a ‘green lane’ that will scrap almost all EU checks on goods arriving in Northern Ireland from the UK. It will also give the province some input into new EU laws.

ERG chairman Mark Francois said the concessions did not appear to go far enough, and he would accept a deal only if ‘EU law is expunged from Northern Ireland’. ‘Less of a role is not enough.

‘Just putting a couple of intermediate phases in but in a situation where you still end up with the European Court of Justice is effectively sophistry. We’re not stupid.’

DUP MP Ian Paisley said: ‘If the PM’s plan involves keeping any part of the protocol, the DUP will not be going back into power-sharing.

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