Key N. Ireland party casts doubt on Sunak’s Brexit solution

Northern Ireland’s main unionist party is still analyzing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal and won’t make a “knee-jerk” decision on whether to accept it, its chief whip Sammy Wilson said. 

The UK premier is waiting to see whether skeptical members of the Democratic Unionist Party back his new agreement with the European Union. Unionists and some pro-Brexit Conservatives in Westminster share concerns that keeping the region in the EU’s single market for goods means ongoing trade frictions with England, Scotland and Wales.

A day after unveiling the new deal — dubbed the “Windsor Framework” — Sunak visited Belfast on Tuesday, telling BBC radio he’s “confident” the agreement addresses their concerns. He also told a business event in the city that Northern Ireland has a “unique” opportunity to trade in both the UK and EU single markets.

On Wednesday Wilson criticized the part of the deal called the “Stormont brake,” which would allow the Northern Ireland Assembly to reject the application of changes to EU rules on goods in the region. The existing Brexit agreement means that EU laws on goods and customs apply in Northern Ireland and politicians at Stormont have no formal way to influence those rules. 

“The Stormont brake is not really a brake at all; it’s a delaying mechanism,” Wilson told Times Radio on Wednesday. He argued that the UK government in London would have the final say over whether to veto an EU law, which it would be reluctant to do due because it would be “fearful of the consequences of trade for the rest of the United Kingdom.”

“The price of that would be that the EU would take retaliatory action,” Wilson said, therefore the brake would be “fairly ineffective.” 

Wilson was also critical of the involvement of King Charles III, who as head of state is supposed to remain above politics but met with the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen on Monday. That was “an indication that the government knew this deal was not a great deal and was trying to persuade unionists to accept it on the basis that we have great respect for the monarchy,” he said. 

‘Star Chamber’ Convenes

Sunak hopes that the DUP will return to Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government, which they collapsed more than a year ago in protest at the existing post-Brexit settlement for the region. 

Jeffrey Donaldson, leader of the DUP, cautiously welcomed Sunak’s deal on Monday but says his party needs more time to study it, and that some issues remain. Wilson said analysis is ongoing. 

The worry for Sunak is that rejection by the DUP could prolong political instability in the region and encourage some hard-line pro-Brexit Conservatives to also vote against it. Sunak doesn’t want to have to rely on the support of the opposition Labour Party to get his deal through Parliament.

Donaldson joined a meeting on Tuesday evening of the European Research Group of Tory MPs — the party’s caucus of hard-line Brexit-backers — to update them on his views of Sunak’s deal. ERG member Mark Francois said the group has commissioned a team of lawyers to study the text and expected it to report within about a fortnight. 

“We’ve asked our legal eagles to go through all of this with an extremely fine-tooth comb,” Francois said after the meeting. “I think all MPs would benefit from their advice, so perhaps they might all want to hear what the ‘star chamber’ conclude.”

An ally of Boris Johnson said the former prime minister is still considering how to respond to Sunak’s Brexit deal.