Latest updates: DUP ministers and hardline Brexiters in Tory party worried that PM has compromised too far with EU
Good morning. Rishi Sunak never had much involvement with Northern Ireland before he became prime minister, but this week he is learning one of the golden rules of Stormont politics; nothing ever, ever gets agreed on time.
Over the weekend it was widely reported that Sunak hoped to announced a deal with the EU on the Northern Ireland protocol this week, perhaps today, with a statement in the Commons on Tuesday. But this morning the government is briefing that it is not coming today, tomorrow is looking unlikely, and the DUP is saying it does not even expect a deal this week. Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s chief whip, was on Sky News this morning and, asked if he expected a deal this week, he replied:
No I don’t. He [Rishi Sunak] realises that there are barriers and hills to climb. He knows the kind of issues that have to be dealt with. I hope he does go into negotiations with a full understanding of what is required.
If a deal is agreed which still keeps us in the EU single market, 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.
Increasingly we would have to agree EU laws which diverge from UK laws and in doing so would separate our own country from the United Kingdom.
It is absolutely imperative tactically to give our negotiators the strongest possible hand to play with Brussels. Also the protocol legislation may well be the cleanest way to fix this problem.
If the perception is there that the bill is moribund then that will, I am afraid, weaken our hand very considerably. We need to make sure that if a deal is struck here it is genuinely a better one than that we can achieve through our own legislation to fix the protocol.
