Rishi’s Brexit deal blow
It’s branded ‘useless’ by Eurosceptic Tory MPs
A key element of Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal was yesterday branded as ‘ practically useless’ by Tory eurosceptics.
In a fresh blow to the Prime Minister, the european Research Group of Brexit-backing MPs gave a withering verdict on the ‘Stormont brake’.
But unlike the DUP, which on Monday said it had ‘unanimously agreed’ that its eight MPs should oppose it, the ERG refused to say how its members would vote.
The group yesterday published the assessment of its ‘star chamber’ of legal experts appointed to study the new post-Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland.
Its report is highly critical of parts of the agreement, which it says makes only ‘limited legal changes to the Northern Ireland
Protocol’. ‘ Claims that this amounts to a new framework or structure are not correct,’ it adds.
The review brands the Stormont brake, which Mr Sunak said would allow Northern Ireland to block future EU laws, as ‘likely to be useless in practice’.
ERG chairman Mark Francois said: ‘The star chamber’s principal findings are: that EU law will still be supreme in Northern Ireland; the rights of its people under the 1800 Act of Union are not restored; the green lane is not really a green lane at all; the Stormont brake is practically useless; and the framework itself has no exit, other than through a highly complex legal process.’
Despite the verdict, Mr Francois refused to say how members would vote, adding: ‘We as a group will discuss what attitude, if any, to take.’ A Tory rebellion and the DUP’s rejection is unlikely to stop the Government winning a vote on the issue today. But the DUP’s stance suggests the political impasse at Stormont will continue. The Unionist party pulled out of a power-sharing agreement last year in protest at the operation of the protocol.
The protocol moved regulatory and customs checks to the Irish Sea, creating barriers on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. This was to prevent a hard border with Ireland.