UK, EU said to agree on Northern Ireland trade deal

Britain and the European Union struck a deal Monday to end a festering dispute over post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland, according to British news media reports. If confirmed, the agreement could resolve one of the most poisonous legacies of Britain's exit from Europe's trade bloc.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain and Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, hammered out the final terms at a meeting in Windsor,

outside London, where King Charles III has a residence.

The agreement, which came after weeks of confidential talks and multiple false starts, could have far-reaching economic and political consequences — averting a potential trade war between Britain and the EU and opening the door to the restoration of a devolved government in Northern Ireland.

It could also remove a lingering irritant between Britain and the United States. President Joe Biden appealed to Sunak to negotiate an end to the trade impasse, and a deal could facilitate a visit by him to London and Belfast,

Northern Ireland's capital, to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended decades of bloodshed known as “the Troubles.”

But the deal is a major risk for Sunak, opening him up to a backlash from pro-Brexit hard-liners in his Conservative Party and the Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland, which has campaigned to rewrite the postBrexit trade rules, rather than simply modify them, as Sunak and von der Leyen have done.

Northern Ireland's unique status — a part of the United Kingdom but sharing a land border with Ireland, which is a member of the EU and its single market — has made its current trade terms a totemic issue for Brexiteers and unionists, the largely Protestant part of the territory's population that wants it to remain in the United Kingdom.

The rules were designed to avoid checks at the land border, which would be unacceptable for Ireland and for Northern Ireland's nationalists, the largely Catholic part of the population that wants the territory to be reunited with Ireland.

Part of the problem is that Sunak negotiated the deal with von der Leyen under a veil of secrecy. This has heightened suspicions among unionists and Brexit enthusiasts, who oppose any deal that applies EU trade rules in Northern Ireland and does not treat it the same as the other countries of the United Kingdom.

The outline agreement would revamp a document known as the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was created to avoid the need for customs controls on goods crossing the politically sensitive border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, and came into force in early 2021. Under the protocol, Northern Ireland stayed within parts of Europe's single market, abiding by its economic rule book.