- Sunak in Belfast, Foreign Secretary in Brussels
- UK Prime Minister tells Northern Ireland politicians deal is ongoing
- According to the DUP, real progress has been made, but unanswered questions remain
- Political support crucial to ending post-Brexit dispute
BELFAST, February 17 (Portal) – Britain’s Prime Minister on Friday told Northern Ireland politicians that progress had been made on relaxing post-Brexit trade rules as he tried to lure the province’s skeptical trade unionists in a last-ditch push for a deal with to keep the Europeans on the Union’s side.
After weeks of intense talks between London and Brussels, momentum has been building towards a deal to overhaul the Northern Ireland Protocol – the deals agreed to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland when the UK leaves the EU in 2020.
An EU diplomat said a deal appeared close and a meeting between British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and EU Brexit chief Maros Sefcovic in Brussels on Friday could set the stage for a quick conclusion.
“We’ve been through this before, so nobody’s ready to uncork the champagne,” said another EU diplomat.
During an overnight stay in a hotel on the outskirts of Belfast, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak turned his attention to the Democratic Unionist Party, whose opposition to the protocol must be overcome for a deal to work.
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“I just want to say that I think there has been real progress on some very important issues,” the DUP’s Jeffrey Donaldson, who unlike other leaders met with Sunak late Thursday and Friday, told the audience afterwards reporters.
“But there remain some outstanding issues that we need to get across the border and we will then consider the final text of any agreement very carefully.”
The DUP has proved a key player in nearly seven years of often tortuous Brexit talks, and its opposition has torpedoed previous attempts at agreement. Donaldson said his party will keep working until a result reaches its red lines.
After Sunak’s team spent much longer with his delegation than any other party on Friday, Donaldson added that he didn’t know when an agreement could be reached and that the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) was part of the ongoing talks.
The talks have been kept secret since a drastic improvement in relations under Sunak, but some key players have complained that the prime minister’s high-wire strategy has left them without details on possible solutions to problems, including the role of the ECJ.
The meetings underscored that support in Belfast and among Eurosceptic lawmakers in Sunak’s ruling Conservative Party will be key to whether London and Brussels can finally put their post-Brexit spit over Northern Ireland behind them.
The response of the DUP, Northern Ireland’s main pro-British party, is particularly crucial after years of boycotting the region’s decentralized power-sharing parliament in protest at the protocol.
Opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Northern Ireland voters – who previously opposed Brexit – back the idea of the protocol, but the introduction of controls on some goods from the rest of the UK has angered many pro-British trade unionists who see this as undermining the union with Great Britain.
“HARD WORK” TO CONTINUE
European Commission Vice-President Sefcovic said in Brussels that the hard work continued after his meeting with Cleverly, which both sides described as “constructive”.
Sefcovic then briefed the EU ambassadors, suggesting that talks were going in the right direction and that an agreement could be possible soon – but without specifying when, the EU diplomat said.
“Relaxing, but not quite there yet,” was the assessment of an EU diplomat.
Sunak will meet with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Munich on Saturday to discuss the status of the talks.
The two sides have already reached an agreement on data-sharing, and in a bid to reduce checks at Northern Ireland ports, the European Commission has said it is open to the idea of ”express lanes” to allow goods destined only for Northern Ireland intended to be segregated from products en route to Ireland or other EU countries.
Brussels insists the ECJ must be the ultimate arbiter of disputes related to its single market, which includes Northern Ireland for trade in goods, while some Conservative members from Sunak and the DUP have seen the ECJ’s continued case law over all UK territories as violating the British see sovereignty.
The other political parties who met with Sunak on Friday said the prime minister’s details on a potential deal were “little”. Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie said he didn’t know much more when he went in.
However, the Alliance Party’s Naomi Long said after their meeting that London and Brussels were “gradually” moving towards a possible deal, while Sinn Fein boss Mary Lou McDonald said there seemed to be “a lot of play”.
Sinn Fein, the former political wing of the militant Irish Republican Army that wants to separate Northern Ireland from the UK and unite it with Ireland, became the province’s largest party for the first time in last year’s elections.
Additional reporting by William James and Muvija M; writing by Padraic Halpin; Edited by Andrew Cawthorne, Alex Richardson and Mark Heinrich
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