Brexit: Breakup of UK ‘at stake’ if Northern Ireland Protocol deal isn’t reached

Published

2 years ago

February 21, 2023

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The breakup of the UK is “at stake” if a new deal on post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland is not reached, a senior DUP politician warned.

Sammy Wilson MP said his party will continue with its protest at Stormont if EU rules aren’t removed in the region – saying this threatens Northern Ireland’s place in the union.

This has been a key sticking point for Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who is battling to reach a new settlement with Brussels to fix issues with the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol.

The mechanism was agreed as part of the Brexit deal to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland – which all parties agreed was necessary to preserve peace.

But because the Republic is in the EU, it means traders in Northern Ireland have to comply with single market rules, creating friction on the flow of goods between the region and the rest of the UK.

Mr Wilson told Sky News the DUP wants Northern Ireland to be “treated in the exactly the same way as the rest of the United Kingdom. In other words, that the laws which apply in Northern Ireland are UK laws, not EU laws”.

He added: “Essentially if a deal is agreed which still keeps us within the EU Single Market, as ministers in the Northern Ireland Assembly we would be required by law to implement that deal.

“And we’re not going to do that because we believe that such an arrangement is designed to take us out of the United Kingdom and indeed would take us out of the United Kingdom, because increasingly we would have to agree EU laws which diverge from UK laws and in doing so would separate our own country from the rest of the United Kingdom.”

Mr Wilson said the prime minister has a choice whether to “protect the union or the European Union”.

“It’s unreasonable to ask unionists to participate in an arrangement which is designed for the break-up of the union, and that’s what’s at stake here. And that’s why this is a historic moment for the prime minister,” he said.

Asked if he thought there would be a deal this week, as reports have suggested, he said: “No I don’t. He (Mr Sunak) realises that there are barriers and hills to climb. He knows the kind of issues that have to be dealt with. I hope he does go into negotiations with a full understanding of what is required.”

No ‘final deal’ yet

Downing Street has kept quiet about the details of what could be in the new deal.

On Monday, the prime minister’s official spokesperson said negotiations were continuing to resolve the outstanding issues and “you will hear our position should a deal be agreed”.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris and the European Commission’s Maros Sefcovic will hold talks by video link on Monday afternoon.

The PM’s spokesman insisted there was not yet a “final deal” – and refused to say whether MPs will get to vote on it should there be one.

It comes amid mounting concerns a Tory civil war will stop an agreement getting over the line.

Pressure mounts on Sunak

Veteran Tory Eurosceptic Sir Bernard Jenkin said that any deal which did not lead to a return to powersharing at the Stormont Assembly by the DUP – which walked out in protest at the protocol early last year – would be “completely disastrous”.

However, ex-justice secretary and Brexit critic David Gauke said the DUP “cannot accept any realistically negotiable outcome and nor can some Tory MPs because they’re purists or opportunists”.

“He has to do a deal without them,” he tweeted.

It is understood Mr Sunak’s officials held talks with their Brussels counterparts on Sunday on how to give local politicians a greater say in the application of EU law in the region, addressing what unionists call the “democratic deficit”.

While it is thought 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 part 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.

What is the Brexit deal being discussed between UK and EU?

The talks that are ongoing are about part of the existing Brexit deal that relates to Northern Ireland.

Dubbed the “Northern Ireland Protocol”, it was agreed with the EU by Boris Johnson in 2020 – alongside the wider trade and cooperation treaty.

The point of it is to avoid a hard physical border on the island of Ireland – the only place where there is a land frontier between the UK and EU.

All parties agreed this was necessary to preserve peace on the island, and the protocol does this by placing Northern Ireland in a far tighter relationship with the EU, compared with the rest of the UK (because the Republic of Ireland is in the EU).

This led to goods travelling into Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK being subject to EU import checks – effectively turning the Irish Sea into a trade border, which former prime minister Boris Johnson promised would not happen.

Unionists say this puts Northern Ireland at an economic disadvantage while threatening its place in the UK – and are refusing to cooperate with forming a powersharing government as a result.

There’s also concern over a so-called “democratic deficit” whereby Northern Ireland takes on rules from Brussels that it has no say over.

The role played by the European Court of Justice is a big sticking point: Because Northern Ireland is still subject to EU rules, Brussels believes its court should have a heavy involvement in resolving disputes.

But the DUP and some Conservative MPs see this as an erosion of the UK’s sovereignty and incompatible with the aims of Brexit.

Downing Street has kept quiet about the details of what could be in the new deal – but it is expected to include measures that reduce red tape on goods travelling to Northern Ireland and the UK, as well as some sort of compromise on the role of the ECJ.

There may be a “green lane” and “red lane” system to separate goods destined for Northern Ireland from those at risk of being transported to the Republic and on to the EU, which should reduce the need for physical checks and paperwork.

There could potentially be a mechanism whereby the ECJ can only decide on a dispute after a referral from a separate arbitration panel or a Northern Irish court.

The big unknown is whether the DUP will support the deal. The party has come up with seven “tests” that it will apply to any deal when deciding whether to back it, including no checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland and no border in the Irish Sea.

If they don’t back a deal and continue their protest at Stormont – then a government in Northern Ireland can’t be formed.

That’s because the DUP is one of two parties that shares power in the devolved government in Northern Ireland – an arrangement made under the Good Friday Agreement which ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

Because the DUP are boycotting the Northern Ireland Assembly, this has meant the democratic institutions that are supposed to be running public services in Northern Ireland and representing voters haven’t been functioning properly for more than a year.

Pressure on Mr Sunak is mounting after his predecessor-but-one made a weekend intervention calling for him to take a tougher line with the EU.

A source close to Mr Johnson said his view was that “it would be a great mistake to drop the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill” – which would empower the UK to scrap parts of the treaty without the EU’s permission.

A senior government official indicated that a successful outcome of the negotiations would mean the controversial legislation – tabled at Westminster under Mr Johnson’s leadership but paused when Mr Sunak entered No 10 – would no longer be needed.

But some Tories quickly sided with the former prime minister, with Conservative former cabinet minister Simon Clarke and Lord Frost – who negotiated Mr Johnson’s original Brexit deal – urging the government to push ahead with the protocol bill.

Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt also said Mr Johnson’s warning was “not entirely unhelpful”, while Home Secretary Suella Braverman said on Monday that the legislation was “one of the biggest tools” at the government’s disposal for “solving” the issues in the Irish Sea.

Labour will vote with government on protocol

On Monday Sir Keir Starmer repeated that the opposition would back the government to get any deal through.

Speaking to reporters during a visit to Thurrock in Essex, the Labour leader said: “There is a window of opportunity to move forward…the question now is whether the prime minister is strong enough to get it through his own backbenches.

“What I have said on Northern Ireland, the national interest comes first. So we will put party politics to one side. We will vote with the government and so the prime minister doesn’t have to rely on his backbenches.”

World

Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

Published

9 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Stakes high for Trump-Putin summit as Zelenskyy faces nightmare deal

For Ukraine – its exhausted, brave soldiers, its thousands of bereaved families mourning their dead, and its beleaguered president – it is exactly what they feared it would be.

They fear the compromise they will be forced to make will be messy, costly, unfair and ultimately beneficial to the invading tyrant who brought death and destruction to their sovereign land.

Six weeks ago, I spoke to President Zelenskyy in London.

War latest: Team Trump ‘risk being out of their depth’ at Putin meeting

I put it to him in our Sky News interview that Presidents Trump and Putin were heading towards making a deal between themselves, a grand bargain, in which Ukraine was but one piece on the chessboard.

Zelenskyy smiled as if to acknowledge the reality ahead.

He paused and then he said this: “We are not going to be a card in talks between great nations, and we will never accept that… I definitely do not want to see global deals between America and Russia.

“We don’t need it. We are a separate story, a victim of Russian aggression and we will not reward it.”

It was a response that betrayed his greatest fear – that this will become essentially a Trump negotiation in which Zelenskyy and Ukraine will be told “take it or leave it”.

And, by the way, if you “leave it”, then it will be painful.

Harsh realities

It’s the prospect that now confronts Zelenskyy as Trump and Putin plough ahead on a course that has clear attractions for both of them.

Of course, Zelenskyy is right to say there can be no deal without Ukraine. But there are harsh realities at play here.

Trump wants a deal on Ukraine – any deal – that he can chalk up as a win. He wants it badly and he wants it now.

It’s the impediment to a broader strategic deal with Putin and he wants it out of the way. It’s what he does, and it’s the way he does it. And President Putin knows it.

He knows Trump, he sees an opportunity in Trump, and he can’t get across Russia to Alaska fast enough. He will be back at global diplomacy’s top table.

Always a deal to be done

Make no mistake, when Trump says he just wants to stop the killing, he means it. Such wanton loss of young lives offends him. He keeps saying it.

He sees war, by and large, as an unnecessary waste of life and of money. Deals are there to be done. There’s always a deal.

Sadly for Ukraine, in this case, it is unlikely to be a fair deal.

How can any deal be “fair” when you are the victim of outrageous brutality and heinous crimes.

But it may well be the deal they have to take unless they want to fight an increasingly one-sided war with much less help from Trump and America.

A senior UK diplomat told me if things turn out as feared, it should not be called a land-for-peace deal. It should be called annexation “because that’s what it is”.

But here’s the rub.

Peace, calm, the end of the nightly terror of war has much to recommend it. In short, a bad peace can often seem better than no peace. But, ultimately, rewarded dictators always come back for more.

If Ukraine has to accept a bad peace, then it will want clear security guarantees to make sure it cannot happen again.

It is the very least they deserve.

There is much at stake in Alaska.

World

Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

Published

9 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Desperation only grows in Gaza, as crowds swell at protests in Israel

As if life in Gaza wasn’t hard enough, there is now a heatwave – compounding the problems of minimal water, food and the basics you need to keep a family alive.

To keep your children halfway clean, when you’ve been displaced over and over again, forced to live under tarpaulin rammed up against your neighbours.

“We suffer greatly, especially because we live in tents,” says Riham Akel, who was displaced from the north and now lives in Gaza City.

“They are made of cloth and plastic that do not protect us from the heat. In addition, there is no electricity, drinking water or water for washing, no fans or air conditioning.”

Given Israel’s planned takeover of Gaza City – and the evacuation of the 800,000 or so people now living there – it’s likely she’ll be forced to move again.

In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the crowds have swelled these past two Saturdays – almost doubling after Hamas published propaganda videos showing two of the remaining hostages starving in captivity – and now this week, Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to push ahead with full security control of the Gaza Strip.

People here just want it to stop.

Yael said: “I feel like a hostage in my own country, as though no one listens to me – 80% of the citizens don’t want it anymore.”

“When you talk about the government it’s not only Gaza,” says David Solomon. “They are trying to undermine the democracy in Israel, they’re trying willingly to destroy the whole of Israel, they don’t care just for another year or two of their survival.”

There are also calls for IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out Netanyahu’s plan to take over Gaza City.

Another major point of contention is what many see as the failure of the International Red Cross to bring food to the hostages. Food for the Palestinians in Gaza is not much discussed, except for a small group on the fringes.

“We believe that the Israeli public is ignorant on purpose,” says Gilad Melzer – holding up a sign saying “Stop Genocide” with a photo of a starving child.

“Some of it wants to stay ignorant and some, the government wants to keep them ignorant of what is going on in Gaza and they’re ignorant as well of what is going on in the occupied territories.”

Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have made up his mind, though. He will ramp up the fight, despite international outcry, despite the opposition of his military leadership and despite the tens of thousands who rally each week in Hostages Square, hoping someone in government will bother to listen.

There is a sense of hopelessness here – that the solidarity of numbers still makes so little difference.

World

Gaza ‘injured his soul’: Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

Published

9 hours ago

August 10, 2025

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Gaza 'injured his soul': Israeli soldier died by suicide two days before he was due to return to duty

When your son is risking his life fighting in Gaza, you don’t expect to hear news he’s been killed on a rest period at home.

Eliran Mizrahi had served 187 days as a reservist in Gaza since 8 October, before he died by suicide in June last year.

His mother Jenny has turned Eliran’s childhood bedroom into a shrine. The 40-year-old’s combat vest hanging on the wall still has sand in it from Gaza.

The cap he was wearing when he died, sits just above it on a shelf laden with memories of his life.

Israel is seeing a wave of soldiers like Eliran taking their own lives – five died by suicide just last month.

IDF (Israel Defence Forces) investigations have found it is what they have seen and done in Gaza that are the cause, according to reports by the Israeli public broadcaster.

Eliran’s mother told Sky News her son returned from Gaza a changed man and she fears there will be many more suicides among Israeli soldiers.

“He never left Gaza in his mind,” says Jenny.

“When he came back he couldn’t go back to work. He was a great father with a lot of patience. And he lost his patience with his children, with people.

“He was very silent. He didn’t sleep at night, he had nightmares. We didn’t know anything about it. He didn’t speak. Whenever we asked him he said everything is okay.”

Jenny describes Eliran as someone who was happy and friends with everyone. A father of four “with a big heart” and a big smile. But his experience of the war “injured his soul”.

Initially, he was deployed to clear bodies of people slaughtered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on 7 October and then deployed to Gaza a day later.

Eliran was active on social media and shared videos of his time in Gaza. He was commander of a unit of D9 bulldozers that destroyed buildings and tunnel shafts.

After his death, his D9 partner, Guy Zaken, told a parliamentary committee they were often shot at and they ran over hundreds of bodies.

Yet they filmed themselves smiling and singing to send to their families. Eliran shared some of those videos on social media.

Israel has levelled vast parts of Gaza. Eliran’s actions were part of a systematic campaign the UN says has damaged or destroyed over 90% of Gaza’s homes. Human rights experts warn this could be a war crime.

Eliran was pulled out of Gaza after he sustained knee injuries in an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attack on his bulldozer.

‘The bodies and the blood’

He was later diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) – we don’t know the cause of his trauma but in the end he couldn’t live with it. Two days before he was due to return to active duty, he took his own life.

“What he saw over there in Gaza injured his soul. You see all the bodies over there and all the blood. It hurts your soul,” says Eliran’s mother.

Israeli media is reporting at least 18 soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year.

Thousands are suffering with PTSD. And more and more reservists are quietly refusing to turn up for duty.

The IDF says supporting its service members is a top priority and it invests significant resources in doing so, including deploying mental health officers in all military units.

Tuly Flint was one of those officers. A clinical social worker and expert in trauma therapy in his professional life, and a lieutenant colonel in the military reserves, he was deployed to offer psychological support to troops who served in Gaza.

Last year, after treating many soldiers and becoming exposed to the extreme suffering of Gazans, Tuly came to the conclusion the war had no purpose and it was a crime against humanity. So he refused to continue to serve in the IDF.

“At the beginning of the war what we usually saw was simple PTSD. People who talk about the horrors they saw in the first few weeks with the massacre of Hamas,” says Tuly.

“But since the second month of the war, people started talking about what takes place on the Palestinian side.

“Even people that were not talking about Palestinians’ rights, or anything like that, they started talking about the fact that they saw bodies of children, of old people, of women.”

‘You think, are they lying to me’

I asked Tuly how soldiers feel hearing Benjamin Netanyahu‘s narrative that there is no starvation in Gaza – that the images we see are a lie.

The Israeli military bears witness to what is happening in Gaza in a way most of the world, including international journalists, still can’t.

“When you hear your government and your commanders telling things that are not true, you start thinking, are they lying to me also?” says Tuly.

“When you hear your prime minister lying about things that you saw in Gaza, things that you did … people talk about torching houses, people talk about a ‘deadline’ – not a metaphor – a deadline when people cross they will be killed no matter if they are children or women … they see people starving and they also see the chaos.”

After nearly two years of war, the human cost is weighing heavily on Israeli society. A majority of Israelis now believe that only a deal, not military pressure, will bring the remaining hostages home.

And the humanitarian crisis unfolding just across the border is becoming a source of public unease. Former military and intelligence chiefs are also now against the war.

The Commanders for Israel’s Security group (CIS) has argued, in its professional judgement, “Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel” – and has written to Donald Trump asking him to compel Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war.

Tuly Flint says there’s an erosion of trust between soldiers and those leading them.

“When you come back home and you hear so many people – former chiefs of staff, former heads of the security bodies of Israel – saying ‘this war has no aim anymore’ … you say to yourself: ‘I hear from former chiefs of staff that I’m killing hostages by waging war and my government is still sending me there?’

“When you see the pictures that you’ve seen with your own eyes and your government says ‘no this is a lie, no this is propaganda’, this makes you distrust everyone. And when you distrust everyone, why would you ask for help?”

The mental and moral burden on soldiers could be about to grow.

Despite strong objections from the IDF’s chief of staff, Israel is expanding military operations in Gaza with plans to take control of the entire territory.

We understand that references to suicide in any context can be difficult for some people. We provide details of support available from the Samaritans where any such references are included. You can find these here: call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.