There has been persistent concern among Sunak\u2019s allies that Johnson could attempt to derail a compromise with Brussels. Keeping the Northern Ireland protocol bill, introduced by Johnson\u2019s government and currently working its way through parliament, now appears to have become a key test for the former prime minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While government insiders are at pains to state that there is much work to do on the details of any deal, they have signalled that a successful outcome would mean the bill would not be needed. \u201cIf we can find a way to satisfactorily resolve the issues with the protocol then you wouldn\u2019t need the bill,\u201d said a senior official. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t resolved them yet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Supporters of the legislation insist it would give the UK continued leverage over Brussels. A source close to Johnson said it was his view that \u201cit would be a great mistake to drop the Northern Ireland protocol bill\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The new threat comes as Starmer called on Sunak to sidestep his hardline MPs by winning a vote on a deal with Labour backing. \u201cThis is no time for political brinkmanship,\u201d he said. \u201cThis situation has dragged on for too long, and the stakes are too high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMy offer to the prime minister stands. If a deal is on the table, and it delivers for the UK, Labour will back it. He doesn\u2019t need to go scrambling around to appease an intransigent rump of his own backbenchers who will never be satisfied with anything. Labour\u2019s priorities are clear and uncompromising: country first, party second.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTwenty-five years ago, politicians of all sides showed courage and leadership to strike a deal that many said would be impossible. They put people before politics. We owe it to the people of Northern Ireland to do the same again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Downing Street has not yet decided whether or not to put any eventual deal to a vote, preferring to wait until a full agreement is on the table. There are already warnings from inside the government and among the most pro-Brexit wing of the Tory party that Sunak will face a political backlash if he tries to secure the deal on the back of Labour support. If Downing Street opts not to hold a vote, some MPs are already threatening to engineer one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Whitehall insider said it would be \u201cpolitical suicide\u201d for Sunak to rely on Labour. Meanwhile, a senior figure from the European Research Group (ERG) of Conservative MPs warned: \u201cIt weakens him considerably. It\u2019s proof \u2026 that he doesn\u2019t command his party. That would go down extremely badly in parliament, but it would also go down very badly with the wider party, who would see that he is in a weak position.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rishi Sunak meeting the US vice-president, Kamala Harris, at the Munich security conference on Saturday. Photograph: Reuters<\/p>\n\n\n\n While details of the deal have not yet been published, it would involve separating goods from Great Britain that are staying within Northern Ireland and ensuring they do not have to undergo routine checks. There are also concerns that Northern Ireland has no say over new rules and regulations coming from the EU.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While MPs have not yet seen any details of the agreement, one figure on the Tory right said it already appeared to be \u201chalf baked\u201d and would not deal with fundamental sovereignty concerns held by many Tories and the DUP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Appearing at the Munich security conference on Saturday, Sunak attempted to dampen expectations of an imminent announcement, warning that an agreement was \u201cby no means done\u201d. Speculation has been rife that a paper outlining the agreement could be unveiled this week. \u201cThere are still challenges to work through,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have not resolved all these issues \u2026 No, there isn\u2019t a deal that has been done, there is an understanding of what needs to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The prime minister used the conference to hold bilateral talks over Northern Ireland with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Sunak met the five main Stormont parties in Belfast last week. However, the DUP warned his proposed deal did not go far enough in resolving its concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about the state of talks on Saturday, a European official said there was \u201csome creativity\u201d taking place, adding that the outcome was hopefully coming soon. The official said: \u201cA decision has to be made on how to solve these technical issues because it is mostly about technical issues now.\u201d The source added that recently \u201cthe atmosphere was different\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Foreign secretary James Cleverly has been briefing senior European foreign ministers in Munich, leaving officials convinced that the big issues of sovereignty such as the role of the European court of justice had been solved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Officials said some of the recent goodwill was being born out of the need for the EU and the UK to work together to stand up to Vladimir Putin. Sunak had taken the largest British delegation to the Munich conference since Brexit, reflecting his belief that the solution to the Northern Ireland protocol will open the way for the UK to cooperate much more closely and formally with the EU on security issues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rishi Sunak is on a collision course with Boris Johnson over his plans to overhaul Northern Ireland\u2019s post-Brexit arrangements, amid a frantic diplomatic blitz to end the bitter dispute with the EU. In the latest sign of the political danger Sunak faces as he attempts to reform the Northern Ireland protocol, it is understood that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":18457,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[2829,8731,11967,11941,5090,157,75,5307,5268,1904,9787,10000,10507,12246,12785,6718,685,1634,1099,159,9505,6564,6032,12921,2264,9723,11491,6449,893,10419,11398,3114,8331,1828,9974,9833,6864,2402,6657,9557,2695,9570,11973,1198,2627,11698,5424,9571,3805,3174,71,5266,5655,9849,11325,5818,7391,8302,4890,255,2699,12605,3080,10976,6238,6348,5704,694,10044,3954,10415,594],"class_list":["post-29698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-backbenchers","tag-belfast","tag-bilateral","tag-bill","tag-boris","tag-boris-johnson","tag-brexit","tag-britain","tag-british","tag-brussels","tag-collision","tag-conservative","tag-court","tag-diplomatic","tag-dispute","tag-downing","tag-downing-street","tag-dup","tag-engineer","tag-eu","tag-european","tag-european-commission","tag-goods","tag-goodwill","tag-government","tag-great-britain","tag-harris","tag-ireland","tag-james-cleverly","tag-justice","tag-kamala","tag-kamala-harris","tag-keir-starmer","tag-labour","tag-leadership","tag-meeting","tag-ministers","tag-mps","tag-munich","tag-munich-security-conference","tag-northern-ireland","tag-northern-ireland-protocol","tag-one","tag-parliament","tag-pm","tag-politicians","tag-politics","tag-post-brexit","tag-president","tag-prime-minister","tag-putin","tag-rishi-sunak","tag-security","tag-stormont","tag-street","tag-strike","tag-suicide","tag-sunak","tag-tories","tag-tory","tag-tory-party","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-ursula","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","tag-us","tag-vice-president-kamala-harris","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-von-der-leyen","tag-will","tag-work","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sunak](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/4a57d8a6a4a97f38f51ec7ecd829877042aa3650\/0_0_3288_1973\/master\/3288.jpg?width=445&quality=85&dpr=1&s=none\")
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