Sunak scores Brexit victory

N Ireland pact agreed

lOndOn: Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Britain had “taken back control” after Brussels agreed to give the UK an effective veto over new EU laws that affect Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister appealed to the Democratic Unionist Party and Conservative Eurosceptics to “seize the opportunity” of his Brexit deal, claiming that it represented a victory for the government.

Mr Sunak said the new “Windsor framework” had fundamentally rewritten the existing protocol and would permanently remove the border between Britain and Northern Ireland in the Irish Sea. On Monday night, local time, he flew to Belfast to sell what he described as the decisive breakthrough.

After a press conference in Windsor, where Mr Sunak and Ms Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission, praised each other’s approach to the talks, the Prime Minister said their deal was “decisively better” than Boris Johnson’s solution.

In a win for the government, Brussels has agreed to give Britain an “emergency brake” that would give the Stormont assembly the power to delay and potentially stop new EU laws coming into effect in Northern Ireland.

Not a single Tory MP openly came out against the deal, with the DUP and Conservative Brexiteers saying that they wanted to see the small print of the text before making a decision. Allies of Mr Johnson said he also wanted to reflect on the proposals.

Other senior Tories, however, lavished praise on Mr Sunak. David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said the Prime Minister had achieved a “spectacular negotiating success”. Theresa May said the agreement would “make a huge difference” to the people of Northern Ireland.

The Times reported that Mr Sunak spoke to Mr Johnson in recent days and gave him a broad outline of his deal.

Mr Johnson was noticeably absent from the Commons on Monday, local time, as the Prime Minister set out the detail of his plans. Mr Sunak was also said to have “reached out” to Liz Truss, the former Prime Minister, although she did not respond.

Under the deal, the present Northern Ireland protocol would be replaced by a framework that would govern the province’s place within the UK and the EU’s single market. The deal would remove large amounts of paperwork and checks on goods crossing from Britain to Northern Ireland under a new system of red and green lanes.

The EU has also agreed that the protocol would be rewritten to allow London rather than Brussels to set VAT rates in Northern Ireland and remove the ban on produce such as sausages and plants being sent to the province.

But on the critical issue of the province’s legal framework, the EU would retain the right to refer cases of infringement to the European Court of Justice.