Rishi Sunak finalizes a new deal with the EU for Northern Ireland and prepares for the challenge of the conservative eurosceptics

The President of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen, and the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, have announced this Sunday, in a joint statement, that they will meet in London this Monday, which anticipates the announcement by both of an imminent agreement on the matter that has most complicated relations between the United Kingdom and the community institutions during the last two years: the Northern Ireland Protocol.

“Today, the EC President and the UK Prime Minister have agreed to continue working face to face, to reach shared agreement and practical solutions to a wide range of complex challenges around the Ireland Protocol and Northern Ireland,” he announces. the text.

Sunak is prepared to face a possible internal rebellion in his party, which former Prime Minister Boris Johnson

One of the most intelligent and maneuvering eurosceptics of the Conservative Party explained to this newspaper last Monday, in one of the rooms for events of the British Parliament on the banks of the Thames, that Rishi Sunak continues to act in politics like the young manager who was from a start-

in California.

"He is an excellent person, but if you are going to swim among sharks, you should show your fin," he warned.

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has decided to show the fin, and even a large part of his teeth.

Through a series of interventions in the most widely read Tory media

the

, and especially the

—, Sunak, who, unlike previous politicians in his position, did defend the process of leaving the EU from the very beginning, has warned the rebels of the hard wing of his party that the time has come to put order in the question of Northern Ireland with a new pact with Brussels that solves the region's fit in the post-Brexit era.

Faced with opposition from the hard wing of his party, headed by Johnson, and from the most recalcitrant unionism in Northern Ireland, Sunak intends to move forward with the agreement with Brussels after two years of tensions over the Irish Protocol, which involves customs and health controls on products entering Northern Ireland.

“As someone who believes in Brexit, who voted for Brexit and who campaigned for Brexit, I want to show that Brexit works, and that it works for all the UK territories,” he told the Times in an

.

Everything to do with this issue has poisoned British politics for decades.

It remains to be seen whether a politician like Sunak, unknown to the public just three years ago and partly placed in Downing Street by a series of coincidences and misfortunes, will have the skill, courage or luck to succeed with the same issue that cost him head to former Prime Minister Theresa May.

Boris Johnson was able to sacrifice the interests of unionism in Northern Ireland, a traditional ally of the Conservative Party, and leave that region within the internal market and under the rules of the EU - something that, according to May, no prime minister would dare to do -, in exchange for carrying out his long-awaited Brexit.

And Johnson again, eager to return to the political front, has decided to lead the revolt against Sunak from the shadows.

Enraged with a prime minister whom he promoted, and who later ended up being key in his downfall, he now reproaches his successor - except for the brief and disastrous term of Liz Truss in between - for laying down his arms and surrendering to the EU.

Johnson's government began the process of a law that gave ministers the prerogative to unilaterally contravene the provisions of the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Brussels understood this maneuver as a declaration of war.

Although the text has never come into force, it was the permanent threat that Downing Street was willing to break international law if the EU did not give in to their pressures and modify fundamental parts of the Protocol.

“It was a good law.

It solves all the problems ”, Johnson defended this week, who is playing the double game of showing his support for the Government while continuing to suggest his willingness to lead the rebellion.

“It was an excellent law that did not create new problems in the economy of the whole island of Ireland.

I would keep the text ”, warned the former prime minister on Sky News.

But Sunak, whose lack of political temperament he makes up for with a dose of rationality, has brought out the colors this weekend both for Johnson and for Truss, who designed the law as foreign minister and promoted it as prime minister.

“My predecessors were right to present this law as the solution of last resort.

But like them, I have also always said that a negotiated solution [with Brussels] would always be a better result.

My job is to seize this opportunity, face tough decisions and give everything I have”, the Prime Minister assured in a forum for the

Accompanied by a warning in his interview with the

: “We must all recognize that this issue does not revolve around me, nor around third parties.

It is something that concerns the communities that make up Northern Ireland.

It revolves around what is best for them.

That is what all of us should have as a priority,” Sunak said.

Final stretch?

After a week in which everything seemed to cool down again, Downing Street has once again put its foot on the accelerator.

Details of the outlined deal with Brussels are unknown, but most of the changes leaked to the British media appear to satisfy much of the DUP's demands.

Its leadership has blocked the autonomous institutions of Northern Ireland —Parliament and Government— for almost ten months, waiting for the changes it requires to be made to the Protocol.

Faster routes, without customs controls, for goods traveling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland;

control by London of VAT and other taxes;

British, non-EU, quality standards for products made in the region;

possibility for the Stormont Parliament to have a say in any new EU legislation affecting Northern Ireland;

and reduction of the role of the European Court of Justice as the ultimate guarantor of compliance with the rules of the internal market, to which the British region belongs as a result of the Protocol.

“We are not stupid.

We want EU laws to be completely removed from Northern Ireland, and for Northern Ireland to be treated in the same way as England, Scotland or Wales," said Mark Francois, Chairman of the European Research Group.

the conservative inner current of eurosceptics that once sank May and exalted Johnson.

The number of their support fluctuates constantly —from 30 to 100 deputies—, but they maintain their threat capacity.

As Downing Street has let it be known this weekend, the final agreement could reach the Cabinet table (the meeting of members of the Government) this Monday.

Sunak has promised to take the matter to Parliament, although he is not obliged to put the agreement with Brussels to a vote.

In theory, it is not a new treaty or a modification of the current one, but rather a series of agreements to make the application of the Protocol more flexible.

The conservative deputies have received an order to be reachable from early Monday morning.

But the prime minister is aware that the more he opens the doors of debate in the House of Commons, the thicker the quagmire in which he may find himself trapped.

The Labor opposition, aware of Sunak's apparent weakness, has offered its votes to push through the deal.

Politically, however,

clinging to the help of the opposing caucus to get away with it would be an irreversible mistake.

This may be the week that the most accidental prime minister in recent UK history shows whether he has already learned to swim with sharks.

The fiasco of the "Windsor Agreement" and the visit of Von der Leyen

The acceleration of Downing Street to the agreement with Brussels, to solve the problems derived from the Northern Ireland Protocol, has also had some bizarre episodes this weekend.

The final stretch was going to coincide with the visit of the president of the European Commission, this same Saturday, to London.

There were plans for Ursula von der Leyen to hold a meeting with Charles III at Windsor Palace, before she and Rishi Sunak announced the pact reached for Northern Ireland, as confirmed by the BBC.

Some media pointed out that the Government was playing with the idea of ​​baptizing it as the "Windsor Agreement". 

The hard wing of the Conservative Party immediately jumped at the information, and accused Sunak of endangering the due neutrality of the monarch, with a move "that bordered on the limits of what is constitutionally correct", according to the ex-minister and historic eurosceptic, Jacob Rees -Mogg.

"It would be completely false to suggest that the king ended up involved in some remotely political maneuver," a Downing Street spokesman told the PA Media agency hours after the commotion.

Von der Leyen's visit was canceled for "operational reasons", the Sunak government also announced, but the president of the European Commission will finally travel to London this Monday.

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