DUP warns Sunak not to leave Northern Ireland ‘abandoned to EU’
The DUP has warned Rishi Sunak that the party will not return to power-sharing if he leaves Northern Ireland “abandoned to the EU” under any new deal he has cut with Brussels over the Brexit trading arrangements for the region.
Sammy Wilson, the MP for East Antrim, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the deal the prime minister is expect to share with Northern Ireland’s political parties in Belfast on Friday must meet the seven conditions it laid down before it returns to power-sharing.
“What we want to hear from him most importantly, is where the negotiations have reached in removing the automatic application of EU law to Northern Ireland without any democratic input from the representatives in Northern Ireland and without any ability to change those laws if they’re detrimental to Northern Ireland,” he said.
He said Northern Ireland had been left “abandoned to the EU” by the Brexit arrangements agreed by Boris Johnson in 2019 that obliges Northern Ireland to observe EU laws to avoid a border on the island of Ireland.
He was speaking hours before Sunak was due to meet political leaders in Northern Ireland to brief them on the latest on negotiations with the EU.
In a sign that a deal is imminent, the EU has also summoned diplomats from the 27 member states to a briefing on Friday morning with the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in Brussels for a further meeting with the European commission vice-president, Maroš Šefčovič.
A deal has been on the cards for the last four weeks and is expected to include a settlement on an elimination of some checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and a new dispute resolution mechanism not involving the European court of justice (ECJ) in the first instance.
But the
Read more on theguardian.com
