The ‘premier’ Rishi Sunak has been harshly criticized for the alleged attempt to implicate King Charles in the Irish Protocol agreement. Several British media had anticipated a trip by the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, over the weekend to “have tea” with the monarch at Windsor Castle, but the visit was apparently blown up.
Downing Street denied that there was an attempt to implicate the monarch to overcome internal resistance to the pact with the EU, although the maneuver came to be codenamed the “Windsor agreement”, which is interpreted as a clear indication of the plan existence.
The British Royal House has stayed out of the controversy, which has served to put eurosceptics and unionists even more on their guard. “That meeting would have been located on the border of constitutional guarantees,” warned the former minister and Conservative deputy Jacob Rees-Mogg.
“The prime minister has not only been naive if he has planned this, but it would be a cynical use or abuse of the figure of the king,” said Sammy Wilson, spokesman for Brexit for the Democratic Unionist Party. (DUP). “The ‘premier’ would have dragged the King into a hugely controversial issue, not just in Northern Ireland, but within his own party.”
Rishi Sunak has decided in any case to challenge the eurosceptics and is preparing to publish the agreement of the Protocol of Ireland with the EU without the prior approval of the unionists or the hard wing of the ‘Tories’, headed by Boris Johnson himself , as anticipated by ‘The Times’.
The ‘premier’ will predictably make the announcement between tomorrow and Monday, after the “positive advances” in his last telephone conversation on Friday with President Von der Leyen.
The agreement, after two years of tense negotiations, would include the almost total elimination of customs controls and red tape in trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, created in its day to preserve the “integrity” of the single market after Brexit and avoid a return to a hard border on the island.
The main point of contention remains the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on possible disputes. Apparently, Sunak would have ultimately agreed to a “limited” role for the CJEU, in the face of pressure from eurosceptics for that role to be assumed by the British courts (faithful to the slogan of “regaining control” and maintaining at all costs the “sovereignty”).
Sunak could also have promised to renounce the so-called Protocol Act, currently pending in the House of Lords, promoted by Boris Johnson to unilaterally “rewrite” the most contentious point of the Brexit agreement. Johnson defended his “excellent” law this week and expressly asked Sunak not to give in to pressure from Brussels.
The former Conservative leader threatens to lead a new rebellion of the hard wing of the ‘Tories’ and vote against the Protocol agreement in Parliament. It is estimated that more than a hundred deputies could join the revolt that would serve to reactivate the civil war of the conservatives and leave Sunak in a position of weakness within his own party.
Sources close to the ‘premier’, quoted by ‘The Times’, say that Johnson “is desperate to make Sunak fail” and enable his own return to Downing Street. Others warn of the risk of returning to the chaotic situation of deep internal division that led to the fall of Theresa May.
In any case, Sunak seems willing to go ahead with his plans and make the Irish Protocol agreement the element that ultimately defines his mandate as ‘premier’ and as conservative leader ahead of the next general elections at the end of 2024.
The leader of the Labor opposition, Keir Starmer, has offered for his part to throw a lifeline to Sunak and to give his support in Parliament to the agreement of the Protocol of Ireland if he considers that it offers sufficient guarantees. Starmer, who once voted to remain in the EU, has made a significant turnaround in recent months and has joined the goal of “making Brexit work.”
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
