British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak indicated Wednesday that no deal is imminent with the European Union to overhaul Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit trade, vowing to “keep fighting” for a satisfactory outcome.
Facing strong criticism from pro-UK unionists in Northern Ireland and hardline Brexiteers in his own Conservative ranks, Sunak talked tough as he was challenged in parliament over the drawn-out talks with Brussels.
“We are still in intensive discussions with the European Union to ensure we can find agreement to meet the tests that I have set,” the prime minister said.
“I have a good understanding of what is required and I will keep fighting until I get it,” he added.
Sunak highlighted three priorities for the negotiation: guaranteeing democratic sovereignty for Northern Ireland, safeguarding its status in the wider United Kingdom, and finding “practical solutions” to problems facing companies.
Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) opposes the protocol, which kept the province in the EU’s single market for physical goods after the rest of the UK left.
The party is refusing to re-enter a power-sharing government in Belfast.
DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said the protocol must be not just reformed but replaced “by rewriting the legally binding treaty text” with the EU.
One key issue exercising the DUP and Tory right-wingers is the prospect of the EU’s European Court of Justice retaining oversight of the protocol, without input from Northern Irish lawmakers.
But Sunak is also under pressure to rebalance strained ties with the EU as a way of revitalising the troubled UK economy. It has been hit hard by reduced trade since Brexit as well as by the Covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine.
The prime minister said he had heard “loud and clear” the DUP’s demands before the party would agree to restore the legislative assembly in Belfast, which is set for the first time to be led by the pro-Irish party Sinn Fein.
Plugging a “democratic deficit” surrounding the protocol was at “the very heart of the issues that must be addressed” with the EU, Sunak added.
