Brexit deal ‘very much game on’ after Rishi Sunak holds talks with Northern Ireland parties
“Significant progress has been made” to resolve the row over the Northern Ireland protocol and a deal is “very much game on”, Sinn Fein’s leader said.
Speaking after talks with Rishi Sunak, Mary Lou McDonald told reporters: “We have always believed that a deal on the protocol was possible and we’ve always known it was necessary.
“It is clear that significant progress has been made and we are very heartened by that. We now want to see a speedy concluding of matters.”
Politics live: PM holds talks with NI parties
Mr Sunak travelled to Belfast last night to meet local party leaders amid mounting speculation a deal on post-Brexit trading arrangements could be days away.
Ms McDonald said: “The bottom line is that we have to ensure that any deal provides for ongoing access to the European single market, no hardening of the border on the island of Ireland and a protection of the Good Friday Agreement in all of its parts.
“It seems to us that it’s very much game on.”
Mary Lou McDonald tweeted a picture of herself and Rishi Sunak, with Michelle O’Neill, right, head of Sinn Fein in NI, and Chris Heaton-Harris, Northern Ireland secretary
She said if these terms are reached it is then “a matter for everyone, for each of the political parties to step up, get back to work and deliver for people here in the north of Ireland”.
This is likely aimed at the DUP and other unionists who have collapsed the Stormont assembly in protest over the protocol.
What is the Northern Ireland protocol?
The mechanism was put in place to ensure there was not a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit, which would have caused significant difficulties.
But because the Republic of Ireland is still in the EU, it meant that any goods in either the Republic or Northern Ireland had to abide by EU rules and regulations.
The Northern Ireland protocol has been a thorn in the side of UK politics since it came into force
This led to goods travelling into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK being subject to import checks – effectively turning the Irish Sea into a trade border, which former prime minister Boris Johnson promised would not happen.
Unionists in Northern Ireland say this has led to them not being a full part of the UK and are refusing to cooperate with forming a devolved Executive in Stormont until the issues are resolved.
Read More:
What is the Northern Ireland protocol and why does it matter?
The UK government says the protocol is not working and wants to override it with new legislation if the EU does not agree to changes – a move Brussels has warned is “illegal and unrealistic”.
However, tensions have cooled in recent months, with both sides pledging to work together to find a way forward.
Newspaper reports have suggested Mr Sunak could brief his cabinet on the deal and announce it in parliament as soon as Tuesday.
Delivering a deal would be seen as a major accomplishment for the prime minister, but the DUP – the largest unionist party – would have to be on board for power sharing to be restored.
‘Still some work required’ – DUP
After emerging from talks with Mr Sunak, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said while “progress has been made” on the NI protocol there is “still some work required”.
He warned that “if and when a final agreement is reached, we will want to carefully consider the detail of that agreement and decide if the agreement does, in fact meet our seven tests”.
These “seven tests” were set out by the party in 2021 and include no new checks of any sort on goods being traded between GB and NI.
Asked if he will compromise on these tests for a deal to pass muster, Sir Jeffrey said it “is not a question of compromising”, but rather the “UK government honouring the commitments they’ve made”.
‘Way to go yet’ on Northern Ireland deal
Other party leaders were cautious about the prospect of an imminent breakthrough.
UUP leader Doug Beattie, a unionist politician, said that Mr Sunak told him there was a way to go yet on the Northern Ireland protocol deal.
UUP leader Doug Beattie
He told reporters: “Really, all he said was things are moving quicker than he probably anticipated them actually moving.
“But when he says there’s still some way to go, that sort of tells me that we could be talking next week, that doesn’t mean it will be next week, it could be the week after.”
Meanwhile Colum Eastwood, the leader of the nationalist SDLP, said the prime minister had given “scant” detail on the potential deal with the EU and said he believed that Mr Sunak was “ticking the box” of engaging with the Stormont parties.
“I think he’s very careful not to get into too much detail until the deal is done and I suppose that’s fair enough,” he said.
Mr Eastwood said he made clear to Mr Sunak that the dual market access provided for in the protocol, allowing business in Northern Ireland to sell unfettered into the EU single market, must be preserved.
“He said the deal is not done yet,” he added.
Mary Lou McDonald, president of Sinn Fein
Role of the European Court of Justice
A key sticking point in negotiations is the role of the European Court of Justice (ECJ).
Senior figures within the DUP and the European Research Group of the Tory party have warned that any deal must remove the oversight of the ECJ in Northern Ireland as well as dealing with trading difficulties.
While it is understood the EU and UK are close to signing off a deal that would reduce protocol red tape on the movement of goods from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, there is no expectation that Brussels is willing to agree to end the application of EU law in the region.
The EU contends that a fundamental plank of the protocol – namely that Northern Ireland traders can sell freely into the European single market – is dependent on the operation of EU rules in the region.
Asked by reporters about the prospect of continued ECJ oversight in Northern Ireland, Sir Jeffrey said: “When we trade within the UK then we should follow UK standards and UK rules, that is our clear position.
“When we’re trading with the European Union, then of course the products that we make, the goods that we want to sell to the European Union have to meet EU standards, that’s the same across the whole of the United Kingdom.
“So, we are looking for an outcome that addresses the issue of where do we stand in relation to our ability to trade within the United Kingdom and its internal market, and that is, in essence, what we need to get as an outcome from this negotiation.”
China put on a show of military strength and diplomatic pulling power in Beijing this week that should worry us all.
At the heart of it was one all-powerful man.
Xi Jinping is emerging as the emperor of a rising China bent on reshaping the world in its image.
He wears the garb of his communist forebears, but he is much more than just another heir to Chairman Mao.
Xi increasingly has more in common with China’s imperial past.
He has disposed of rivals and term-limit rules, making him potentially ruler for life.
Xi believes it is China’s destiny to return to its rightful place as the centre of the world. A new world order dominated by China is approaching he believes, hastened by the Trump administration’s willingness to dismantle the current Pax Americana and western disarray over Ukraine.
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The Chinese weapons that will worry America
China has a right to assert itself more robustly on the world stage, of course, but it’s the manner of that assertion and the risks of collision with the West that should give cause for concern.
Xi has ruthlessly crushed dissent at home with quasi genocidal repression in Xinjiang, a cultural holocaust in Tibet and brutal suppression of human rights in Hong Kong.
Next in his sights is Taiwan. It is claimed by the Chinese communists as part of their One China project.
That opens up one fault line between Xi’s rising China and Western nations.
China’s more and more open support of Putin’s war in Ukraine is of course another.
Western impotence and failure to bring enough pressure on Russia to end the conflict has allowed it to metastasize into a much bigger one.
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The three autocrat amigos in Beijing on Wednesday. Pic: Reuters
On one side in the East, authoritarian governments lining up to support Russia. And on the other, democratic countries supporting Ukraine.
This week’s jamboree of autocrats in Beijing seems to have tipped things more in their favour. Good news for regimes using Orwellian surveillance, censorship, and repression to control their people and keep a grip on power.
Bad news for the rest of us who prefer a future organised around democracy, freedom, and the rule of law.
Dictators rejoice. Democrats beware.
World
‘At night we don’t sleep’: How a West Bank family are facing harassment by young Israeli settlers
The further we go, the rougher the terrain becomes, jolting the car as we drive along a mountain track strewn with rocks.
And then we round a corner and there is a sleeping dog, a circle of chairs and two women smiling and beckoning us to follow them.
This is Fatima and her mother-in-law, Fadda. They live in a makeshift camp perched on a rocky ledge.
Fatima (left) and Fadda say they are afraid their homes could be set alight
Behind their tent is a cave, in which there are chickens and a bed. In front of it is the path where we now stand, and then a precipice that looks down upon a ravine.
They invite us into a tent to talk. Sweet tea is brought out, and so is the story of how their home was demolished, their car stolen, their peace destroyed and why they now have to hide their flock of sheep.
But before all that, Fatima takes us out and points at a ridge behind their camp.
We can see a small black structure, just visible against the dark rock. “That is where they are,” she says. “The settlers come down from there.”
The family say settlers are constantly coming to their camp home to harass them
Every day, people come down to her home. Unwelcome visitors.
“We’d be baking bread, and they would come, lay out their mattresses and just sit there. When we told them to leave, they’d return with more settlers and an armed soldier.”
And the soldier, always, would be on the side of the settlers.
“At night we don’t sleep,” says Fadda, smiling through the pain.
“We stay awake waiting for the settlers. Four or five of them come in their cars each night, sometimes on motorcycles, right up to our doorstep to terrify the children.
“We sit through the night, afraid they’ll set fire to our homes and belongings, trying to force us to flee with our kids.”
We see videos, shared widely on social media, of Fadda confronting a young settler who has come to menace the family.
Fadda confronted a young settler in a video shared on social media
He stands right in front of her, staring her straight in the eyes, trying to push her forward. Fadda responds by standing her ground, smiling gently at him.
“This happens every single day,” says Fatima. “If we didn’t stand up for ourselves, we would have left long ago. The problem is, they’re children.
“They send the kids down on purpose to provoke us, to push us off our land. That’s why we’ve had to build this resilience.”
Fadda says the settlers come ‘right up to our doorstep to terrify the children’
Their tale of suffering is desperate. They tell me the family used to live in a house, which was demolished by the Israel military.
An hour later we drive past its remains – a huge pile of twisted metal and rubble. Their car has been taken so they have to walk to distant shops under the baking sun.
Mobile phones have been stolen along with computers and animals. Their flock of sheep is now kept in another place, hidden from sight.
‘This is our land’
“The situation has become really bad,” says Fatima. “Not just for us, but for the whole West Bank.”
And yet the family is determined to stay. “This is our land,” say both women, almost in unison. The brutal truth is also that they have nowhere else to go.
The West Bank is dotted with Israeli settlements, from top to bottom, some large and long-established, with thousands of residents and a sprawling infrastructure; some small and very new, with just a few caravans parked on a hilltop.
All of them are based on the idea of extending the reach of the Israeli state by placing its people all over the West Bank, or at least turning a blind eye to them moving there.
The fact that these settlements are, by widespread consent, illegal under international law has not stopped them from proliferating. Quite the opposite.
Not only are they growing in number and size, but the Israeli government is lending them ever more support and legitimacy.
Read more:
Inside the conflict forcing Palestinians from their homes
West Bank: The city locked down by armed troops
Bezalel Smotrich wants Israel to annex more than 82% of the West Bank. Pic: Reuters
Now, the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has declared that it’s time for Israel to annex more than 82% of the West Bank.
His logic can be summed up like this: we’re not safe with neighbours like this, and according to the Bible, it should be our land anyway.
Not everyone will agree, and perhaps most outside Israel will strongly disagree, but Smotrich is, as always, unapologetic and unabashed.
“Beyond our Biblical, historical and moral right to the entire land of Israel, the political and security role of sovereignty is to ensure that a Palestinian Arab terror state is never established in our land,” he said.
“Enemies should be fought, not provided with comfortable lives.”
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The West Bank has, for decades, been a crucible for ever-growing mistrust and dislike. It has seen waves of terrible violence and chronic divisions.
There is no sign of things improving, but plenty of suggestions that they are getting worse.
A woman who will appear as Miss Palestine in a global beauty pageant has said she wants to represent her culture and “show the world that we are human beings”.
Nadeen Ayoub told Sky News she wants to “speak up about Palestine and to carry the voices of those that are unheard”.
Speaking on The World With Yalda Hakim, she said she became Miss Palestine in 2022 and will now head to Thailand in November to compete against dozens of others at Miss Universe.
“I don’t want people to be thinking when they hear the word Palestine, to just be thinking of suffering and pain,” said Ms Ayoub.
“So just like we hear the word ‘Italy’ and we think of beautiful things, like the Amalfi Coast and pizza and pasta.
“When we think of other nations, we think of their heritage and their culture and their identity, and we see them as human beings.
“I want the same thing for Palestine to show the world that we are human beings, and that is simply my message.”
Ms Ayoub was partly raised in the US and Canada and now reportedly splits her time between Dubai, Ramallah, and Amman.
She was supposed to compete in Miss Universe following success as Miss Palestine at another pageant in 2022.
However, she told Sky News she delayed her entry until now after the Hamas attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
The 27-year-old has been criticised by some for calling the dire situation there a “genocide” during an interview last month. Israel denies all accusations of genocide.
Among her critics is the runner-up in the Miss Israel contest, who questioned Ms Ayoub’s inclusion in November’s pageant and urged her to speak out against Hamas.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
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“Miss Universe stands for unity, peace and co-existence – and if she stands for all of those things then let’s have it,” Adela Cojab Moadeb told the NY Post.
“I would welcome an advocate who stands against extremism and stands for the right of all people to exist.”
Ms Ayoub declined to comment in her Sky News interview, stressing her message is to “show the world that we Palestinians have an identity of creativity, of talents, of heritage, of culture”.
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