Brit Sunak is asking Northern Ireland to support Brexit plans
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is set to meet with Northern Ireland politicians as a spate of diplomacy fuels expectations that a deal to improve post-Brexit trade arrangements for the province could be finalized within days.
Sunak arrived at a hotel on the outskirts of Belfast late Thursday.
A European Union diplomat said what appears to be a deal to revise the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed when Britain left the bloc to avoid a hard border with EU member Ireland, is close but not complete .
A separate meeting between British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and EU Brexit chief Maros Sefcovic on Friday in Brussels would set the stage for a possible swift conclusion to weeks of intense talks, the diplomat said.
Meetings in Belfast with the region’s main political parties have underscored the fact that political support for any deal will be key to whether London and Brussels can finally ditch their post-Brexit spit on Northern Ireland.
“What we want to hear…most importantly is where the negotiations are on lifting the automatic application of EU law to Northern Ireland,” senior Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) MP Sammy Wilson told the BBC.
“This issue, this central issue of sovereignty and the democratic deficit, needs to be addressed.”
The support of the DUP, Northern Ireland’s largest pro-British party, is particularly important after it boycotted the region’s devolved parliament in protest at the protocol.
Another senior DUP member said Thursday they had not seen details of the potential deal.
Opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Northern Ireland voters support the idea of the protocol, but the introduction of controls on some goods coming in from the rest of the UK has sparked anger from many pro-British trade unionists.
Talks so far have been secret, and some of the key players complained they hadn’t seen details on possible solutions to problems, including the role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland.
