Boris Johnson has emerged as a hard-line spokesman for the Conservative Party and has warned Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that it would be “a big mistake” to give in to pressure from the European Union to reach a final agreement on the Ireland Protocol, the most contentious point and Brexit still unresolved. The agreement that Rishi Sunak intends to sign this week with Brussels would include the resignation of the so-called Protocol Law, the controversial text promoted in its day by Johnson by which the British Government reserves the right to ” unilaterally rewrite” the rules of trade with Northern Ireland. The law is currently pending in the House of Lords and should return to the House of Commons in the coming days for final approval. According to the information that has come out about the negotiation, the Sunak government would be willing to renounce the Protocol Law (drafted in its day by Liz Truss when she was Foreign Secretary) as a sign of goodwill in the final stretch. Sunak could also ultimately agree to a limited arbitration role of the Court of Justice of the EU in cases of dispute over the application of the Protocol, another contentious point that has provoked an angry reaction from unionists in Northern Ireland and hard-wing Tories.
“If we are still going to have a foreign court with jurisdiction in our country, for many of us it will be very difficult to support an agreement,” has threatened the ultra-conservative deputy David Jones, vice president of the European Research Group (ERG), from where they have launched You already proclaim against the Sunak government for “trying to undo Brexit”.
The direct intervention of Boris Johnson threatens to reopen the eternal war of the Tories, with dozens of deputies willing to torpedo the agreement with the EU on the Protocol, whose purpose is to preserve the integrity of the single market and avoid a return to a hard border between the two Irelands. Sunak also faces resistance from the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which refuses to participate in a unity government “as long as there is internal customs in the United Kingdom.” “Our position is so clear: there must be no controls or trade barriers for products between Great Britain and Northern Ireland,” stressed the leader of the DUP, Jeffrey Donaldson. Sunak’s difficulties with the right wing have also forced the intervention of the leader of the Labor opposition Keir Starmer, willing to give him his support in Parliament: “This situation has lasted too long. We cannot continue with the policy of confrontation. If the deal is on the table, and it meets the priorities that we Labor consider, we would be willing to vote for it. It is time to put people before politics, as we did 25 years ago with the peace agreement.” .
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