Rishi Sunak in final push to get Brexit done
Sunak primed for ‘final’ meeting with Ursula von der
Leyen as Tory Brexiteers wait for the big reveal.
BY
ANNABELLE DICKSON
FEBRUARY
26, 2023 11:30 PM CET
LONDON —
Boris Johnson may have coined the phrase, but Rishi Sunak hopes he's the man
who can finally claim to have "got Brexit done."
The British
prime minister will on Monday host European Commission President Ursula von der
Leyen in what's being sold by No. 10 Downing Street as the pair's "final
talks" on resolving the long-running row over post-Brexit trading
arrangements in Northern Ireland.
Downing
Street has drawn up a carefully choreographed sequence of events following the
meeting. Sunak will brief his Cabinet following the late lunchtime face-to-face
with the European Commission chief.
He then
hopes to hold a joint press conference with von der Leyen to announce any deal
before heading to the House of Commons late on Monday to begin his trickiest
task yet — selling that deal to Brexiteer MPs on his own Conservative benches,
many of whom will be closely watching the verdict of Northern Ireland's
Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
It's likely
to mark a defining moment in Sunak's young premiership, which only began in
October when he took over a Conservative Party still riven with divisions
following the departures of Johnson and Liz Truss in quick succession. If
successful, he will hope to draw a line under the rancorous follow-up to
Britain's 2020 departure from the bloc, and herald an era of closer cooperation
with Brussels.
But even as
Downing Street was drawing up plans for Monday's grand unveiling, members of
Sunak's own party were voicing skepticism that the prime minister will have
done enough to win their backing. And without DUP support, Northern Ireland's
moribund power-sharing assembly could remain collapsed.
Testing times
Since
taking office, Sunak has put securing a deal with Brussels on the so-called
Northern Ireland protocol near the top of his to-do list.
The
post-Brexit arrangement has been a long-running source of tension between the
U.K. and the EU, and the two sides have been locked in months of talks to try
to ease the operation of the protocol while addressing the concerns of both the
DUP and traders hit by extra bureaucracy.
Under the
protocol, the EU requires checks on trade from Great Britain to Northern
Ireland in order to preserve the integrity of its single market while avoiding
such checks taking place at the sensitive land border between Northern Ireland
and the Republic of Ireland.
But the DUP
sees the protocol as separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. and
is boycotting the region's power-sharing government until changes are made.
In a
statement Sunday night, Downing Street said Sunak wanted "to ensure any
deal fixes the practical problems on the ground, ensures trade flows freely
within the whole of the U.K., safeguards Northern Ireland’s place in our Union
and returns sovereignty to the people of Northern Ireland."
Downing
Street has kept the detail of any deal a closely-guarded secret. In an
interview on Sky News Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab talked up the
prospect of “more of an intelligence-based approach” to goods checks, and a
move away from individual checks at Northern Irish ports. The U.K. and EU have
already talked up more access for Brussels to British goods data.
One of the
biggest flashpoints for Brexiteer MPs and the DUP will be the status of the
Court of Justice of the European Union in governing disputes under the protocol.
They see the continued presence of the EU's top court in the arrangement as a
challenge to British sovereignty.
On Sunday,
Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative
Euroskeptics, set a high bar for his support, warning any deal must see
Northern Ireland treated on the "same basis" as the rest of Great
Britain. He warned that even a reduced role for the CJEU over Northern Ireland
was not “good enough.”
Raab told
Sky that scaling back some of the regulatory checks and paperwork "would
in itself involve a significant, substantial scaling back of the role of the
ECJ," and he talked up the idea of a “proper democratic check coming out
of the institutions in Stormont," the home of Northern Ireland's
power-sharing assembly.
Minefield
One
potential source of Brexit trouble on Sunak's benches is Johnson himself, who
has already been warning the prime minister not to drop the Northern Ireland
Protocol Bill aimed at allowing U.K. ministers to unilaterally sideline the
arrangement.
The Sunday
Times reported that Johnson, while being lobbied to support a deal to cement
relations with U.S. President Joe Biden, responded with the colorful retort:
“F*** the Americans!” The same paper cited a "source close to"
Johnson who dismissed it as "a jocular conversation in the [House of
Commons] chamber that someone evidently misunderstood."
As another
defining Brexit week begins, Sunak appears willing to plow ahead, even without
the support of the most hardline Brexiteers in his party. Raab insisted on
Sunday MPs would “have the opportunity to express themselves on the deal,” but
did not elaborate on whether there will be a House of Commons vote on the
arrangement.
Former
Chancellor George Osborne, one of the key figures in the campaign to remain in
the European Union, urged Sunak to press on and "call the bluff" of
the DUP, Johnson and the ERG — or his premiership would be "severely
weakened."
"Having
got to this point in the minefield, he has to proceed," Osborne told the
Andrew Neil Show.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário