Rishi Sunak is gearing up for a full-blown revolt from hard-core Brexiteers as he pushes for a deal with Brussels today amid concerns he plans to scrap key legislation to create a Brexit deal crossed the line. The prime minister has been warned of any attempted deployment King Charles “schmooze” Brussels in the coming days as part of a charm offensive that labeled a former MP as “pathetic”.
Mr Sunak today indicated his willingness to pull the plug on the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which aims to allow his government to suspend parts of the controversial mechanism for preventing a hard border on the island of Ireland. border instead along the Irish Sea.
Brexit The stalwarts are believed to be deeply uneasy at the prospect, and the Deputy Minister of Northern Ireland Steve Baker is said to be considering his position after apparently being barred from talks.
Write in the TelegraphSunak stressed that the bill, introduced during the tenure of predecessor Boris Johnson, had been necessary to put pressure on the EU.
However, he ignored Mr Johnson’s advice last week that pulling the plug would be “a huge mistake”, explaining: “As long as the European Union refused to reopen negotiations on the protocol itself, this bill was the only way I have no doubt that it helped create the conditions under which the EU was willing to engage constructively.
An ERG source said talks with its members had been halted, saying “All this cloak and dagger stuff around the ‘deal’ suggests the government isn’t very sure of its actual substance.”
Likewise, the Democratic Unionist Party is also on the outside, with an insider saying, “It’s a strange way to approach a political problem — involve only the people you want to convince at the very last minute, and then don’t let them see the details so they can decide their own tests?
The DUP, which is currently boycotting Stormont over concerns over protocol, has seven key tests it must pass before its members return to assembly and re-enter a power-sharing deal.
These include lifting all controls on goods moving from Britain to Northern Ireland and ensuring that the European Court of Justice no longer has any oversight over UK laws.
Last week Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she wouldn’t be happy with any perceived climb down, telling GB News she couldn’t support anything that would see the EU “get a foothold in Northern Ireland” – although she subsequently downplayed suggestions that she might end her post.
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Meanwhile, while the king will visit Berlin and Paris next month, Mr Sunak has been warned by Jacob Rees-Mogg not to use the monarch for his own narrow political ends.
The former leader of the House of Commons, also a former chairman of the ERG, said: “Of course the government has long played an important role in advising the monarch on his major public engagements.
“However, it would be wrong for Downing Street to pressure the King to make his first overseas visit based on his own transient political imperatives.”
Another Brexit backer said: “Involving His Majesty in this is a major misstep by No10. Remnants always went berserk if there was any suggestion that the royal family would be involved Brexit. Now it seems convenient for them to send him on EU schmoozes.”
Former Labor MP Kate Hoey, now Baroness Hoey of Lylehill and Rahtlin and a committed Brexiteer herself, tweeted: “How pathetic of 10 Downing Street to even think this could be a good idea. Really disturbing that any official around Rishi Sunak could have suggested this.