Brexit: Sunak facing tough sell to Tories and DUP
as Von der Leyen flies in
European Commission chief heading to Britain for
‘final talks’ over Northern Ireland protocol
Peter
Walker Political correspondent
@peterwalker99
Sun 26 Feb
2023 22.30 GMT
Rishi Sunak
is to hold a Brexit summit with the president of the European Commission on
Monday to sign off a revised deal on the Northern Ireland protocol.
In what
could be the most perilous week of his political life, the prime minister will
meet Ursula von der Leyen in the early afternoon for what No 10 billed as
“final talks”.
He will
then face the daunting task of selling the deal to hardline Conservative
Brexiters and Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party (DUP), who issued
renewed warnings over the weekend that they would not be bounced into accepting
something that did not meet their red lines.
While
Downing Street sources said there are still matters that need consideration by
Sunak and Von der Leyen, the widespread assumption is that the meeting will
rubberstamp a revision to Boris Johnson’s protocol for post-Brexit arrangements
in Northern Ireland.
The deal is
not expected to radically change the way Northern Ireland trades with the EU
via the Irish border, or with the rest of the UK, but will implement systems to
ease checks across the Irish Sea – a feature of Johnson’s plan that has enraged
the DUP and many Tories.
Sunak is
due to host a cabinet meeting on Monday afternoon before a likely joint press
conference with Von der Leyen. He will then update the Commons, where he will
begin what is likely to be an extremely tough political sell.
While Tory
Brexiters and the DUP have said they will only give a verdict on the revised
protocol when they have read the final and full text, which might not be
published until later in the week, No 10 is braced for a response that is at
best suspicious and potentially hostile.
The
influential European Research Group (ERG) of Brexit-minded Tory MPs has warned Sunak
against trying to finalise any agreement without a formal Commons vote, which
ministers have yet to commit to.
After
Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister, said on Sunday that parliament would
“find a way to have its say”, Mark Francois, the Tory backbencher and ERG
chair, warned it would be “incredibly unwise” to proceed without a vote.
Francois
told Sky that any continued role for EU law in Northern Ireland, and thus the
European court of justice (ECJ), would make the deal unacceptable – although
this is inevitable given the barrier-free trade border on the island of
Ireland.
“Just
putting in a couple of intermediate phases, with a situation where you still
end up with the European court of justice, is effectively sophistry,” Francois
said.
“We’re not
stupid. What we want is a situation where EU law is expunged from Northern Ireland
so it is treated on the same basis as England, Scotland and Wales.”
ECJ
jurisdiction in Northern Ireland would also not be acceptable to the DUP, he
said, adding: “If the DUP don’t consent to the deal then it’s simply not going
to fly.”
Sunak is entering
into a battle of the sort that brought down Theresa May, but in a different
political landscape, with many Conservative MPs more amenable to compromise,
aware of slumping Tory poll numbers and desperate for a political victory.
While
dissent from the DUP would be a blow to the prime minister, the Downing Street
sell to Tory MPs would be for them to think beyond ideological purity and to
embrace an achievement that proved beyond May and, to an extent, Johnson.
“This whole
process has been based on trying to achieve something that is in the best
interests of all people in Northern Ireland, and businesses there,” a
government source said. “That is the lens through which the PM has approached
these negotiations – with them in mind.”
Another
difference is that in elections to the moribund Northern Ireland assembly in
May last year, the DUP finished second to Sinn Féin and polling shows the
protocol is a big concern to a minority of local voters.
The next
few days are nonetheless likely to be fraught and complex, with some
Conservative MPs saying that while they are open to examining the text of the
deal, they fear it might be little more than a dressed-up version of the
existing protocol.
“If it’s a
tweak of the current arrangement it’s not really a deal, is it?” one former
minister said. “If it’s the same arrangement, but just with an added
instruction manual, that’s not a deal.”
As well as
a vote, they said, Tory backbenchers would resist any attempts by Sunak and his
team to impose an artificially accelerated timetable for agreement, in an
effort to prevent proper scrutiny.
“That would
be a really foolish thing to do,” they said. “It’s not just the DUP. You really
need to take Conservative MPs with you, and you don’t do that by trying to
bounce them into agreeing to something that they’re not happy with. That would
be extremely bad politics, and I hope they’re not considering doing that.”
The talks
between Sunak and Von der Leyen were announced on Sunday afternoon as a
continuation of their “work in person towards shared, practical solutions for
the range of complex challenges around the protocol on Ireland and Northern
Ireland”.
A later No
10 statement said: “Over the past few months, there have been intensive
negotiations with the EU, run by British ministers, and positive, constructive
progress has been made. There have been hundreds of hours of talks covering all
issues at stake and talking from first principles: what works for Northern
Ireland.”
The deal is
expected to address the key issue of items coming into Northern Ireland
intended for the Republic of Ireland, and thus into the EU’s single market, by
having most goods processed via a light-touch “green light” system to minimise
checks.
While
EU-facing trade necessarily requires some of the bloc’s regulations to have
sway, the hope is that the reduced checks will minimise their influence, and
thus the potential oversight of the ECJ.
Another
change will see new rules that affected the EU’s single market requiring a
final say from the devolved assembly at Stormont.
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