Rishi Sunak will meet with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the United Kingdom today. They are expected to hold “final talks” on a new Brexit deal to resolve the trade issues raised by the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Ursula von der Leyen will meet with King George VI at Windsor Castle today afternoon.
Buckingham Palace stated that the King is “pleased to meet any world leader” who visits Britain and that the government recommends that he do so.
Earlier, John Major said democracy is “thrown away” when Northern Ireland’s government is not sitting as he urged the DUP to back a new deal between the UK and the EU.e
“They talk of democracy. Democracy is thrown away when that [Northern Ireland] assembly is not sitting. We need them back.”
Striking an agreement at a meeting with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen would be a victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak — but not the end of his troubles. It may be a tougher struggle to sell the deal to his Conservative Party and its Northern Ireland allies.
Sign of a potential U.K.-EU breakthrough came Sunday when the two sides announced that von der Leyen would travel to England for a meeting with Sunak in Windsor, about 20 miles (32 kilometres) west of London. A joint news conference is pencilled in, followed by a statement by Sunak to the House of Commons.
If all goes to plan, it could end a dispute that has soured U.K.-EU relations, sparked the collapse of the Belfast-based regional government and shaken Northern Ireland’s decades-old peace process.
Northern Ireland is the only part of the U.K. that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland. When the U.K. left the bloc in 2020, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland’s peace process.
Instead, checks are on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. That angered British unionist politicians in Belfast, who say the new trade border in the Irish Sea undermines Northern Ireland’s place in the United Kingdom.
The Democratic Unionist Party collapsed Northern Ireland’s Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government a year ago in protest and has refused to return until the rules are scrapped or substantially rewritten.
The DUP has stayed largely silent recently, saying it needs to see the details of a deal before deciding whether it meets the party’s self-imposed tests.
Hints of compromise towards the EU have also sparked opposition from hard-line eurosceptics who form a powerful bloc in Sunak’s Conservative Party. Critics include former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who, as a leader at the time of Brexit, signed off on the trade rules he now derides. Johnson was ousted by the Conservatives last year over ethics scandals but is widely believed to hope for a comeback.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent pro-Brexit Tory lawmaker, said accepting any deal ” depends on the DUP. If the DUP are against it, I think there will be quite a significant number of Conservatives who are unhappy.”
Sunak has said Parliament will get to debate any deal he strikes, but he hasn’t promised lawmakers a binding vote.
Relations between the U.K. and the EU, severely tested during the long Brexit divorce, chilled further amid disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The U.K. government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal. The bloc accused the U.K. of failing to honour the legally binding treaty it had signed.
