In a major development, Britain and the European Union on Monday finalized a long-awaited and much-anticipated agreement on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.
UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed the deal at a meeting in Windsor, England. Sunak later said the pair would hold a news conference on Monday. The government had earlier said that this will happen only if there is a deal.
The settlement is a major victory for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak – but not the end of his troubles. Selling the deal to his Conservative Party and its Northern Ireland allies could be an uphill battle. Now Sunak awaits a decision from Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party, which is boycotting the region’s power-sharing government unless the business system changes significantly.
A sign of a possible UK-EU breakthrough came on Sunday, when both sides announced that von der Leyen would meet Sunak at Windsor, about 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of London. Sunak is later due to make a statement to the House of Commons. A meeting between von der Leyen and King Charles III is also planned at Windsor Castle. The meeting is likely to discuss a variety of issues including climate change and the war in Ukraine.
Buckingham Palace said the meeting was taking place on the advice of the government, leading critics to accuse Sunak of dragging the monarch, who should remain neutral, into a political row.
“I absolutely cannot believe Number 10 would ask HM King to be involved in finalizing such a controversial deal. This is nonsense and will go down very badly in NI,” former Northern Ireland minister Arlene Foster said on Twitter.
Sunak’s spokesman, Max Blaine, said the government would never engage the king in politics. “Your Majesty has recently met with several foreign leaders,” he said, including Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky. “It’s no different.”
If all goes according to plan, the deal could end a dispute that has soured UK-EU relations, sparked the collapse of the Belfast-based regional government and stalled Northern Ireland’s decades-long peace process. Shaken.
(with inputs from AP)