Northern Ireland Protocol: Rishi Sunak has so far kept his Brexit talks trump card under wraps – this is what could be in the deal and why it could face trouble ahead

Published

2 years ago

February 26, 2023

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Enemies are circling, Brexiteers are already pronouncing it dead, and the DUP are warning it undermines the Union.

But as opponents line up to try and assassinate Rishi Sunak’s forthcoming deal with Brussels to rework Northern Ireland’s post-Brexit future, Sky News can reveal that Number 10 is yet to play its trump card.

Despite weeks of headlines and column inches about the talks, Downing Street has so far kept under wraps what some believe is perhaps the biggest negotiation win.

Far from giving ground to the EU, they think they have turned the tables and forced a concession.

In short, Westminster will set VAT rates, taxation and state aid policy in Northern Ireland, not Brussels.

Politics latest: Tory MPs told to be in Westminster on Monday amid Brexit deal speculation

Mr Sunak has made addressing the disparity over VAT a priority ever since his last budget as chancellor, when Northern Ireland could not benefit from his decision to slash the tax on solar panels and other energy efficient purchases elsewhere in the UK because it must follow EU single market rules.

Downing Street is unwilling to reveal any change is coming publicly, insisting that “intensive” negotiations are still under way, giving them nothing yet to announce.

However, Sky News understands that the concession by Brussels is likely to feature at the heart of the reform package.

Some MPs have been alerted to the likely inclusion of this change, it is welcomed privately by senior DUP figures, and it is understood to be one of the three major changes at the heart of the Sunak deal with Brussels. The DUP’s only reservation is that they want to see the legal text to check the concession is as described.

It is not clear, however, whether it will be enough.

After months of official negotiations, what some see as basic errors – and an information vacuum – may have allowed too much of a head of steam to build up behind the opposition.

As a result, it is now unclear whether the changes hammered out with Brussels since December will ever be implemented.

Mr Sunak is facing splits amongst key allies over how and whether to proceed, with warnings that he’s not strong enough to face down his party and growing anxiety in Brussels that the first prime minister they have trusted since Brexit may be about to let them down.

The next few days could end up being the most consequential of his premiership.

What is in the forthcoming deal?

The patchwork of measures and agreements to change the Northern Ireland Protocol have been prepared in utmost secrecy.

Taken together, those involved say it required the EU to change its negotiating mandate and agree to alter the text of the Protocol – something Brussels said was not possible during the premierships of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Under the Sunak proposals, three key changes to that arrangement are likely to be agreed.

The first has been well trailed: businesses that have signed up to a “trusted trader scheme” will be allowed to avoid all checks when moving goods from the GB mainland to Northern Ireland.

In exchange, the EU will be able to access “real-time” UK data on trade flows across the Irish Sea. The handful of companies who are not signed up to the trusted trader scheme would have to continue labelling and filling in paperwork as at present.

The second – known as the “Stormont Lock”, first mentioned in The Sunday Times – is designed to go some way towards addressing concerns that Northern Ireland will remain subject to EU single market rules under the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice as the price of avoiding border checks between the North and the Republic.

It is very complicated, but essentially it will give Northern Ireland some of the rights also enjoyed by Norway – which is also out of the EU but in the single market, so it has a say on the rules being imposed by Brussels.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, the EU will have to give the UK notice of future EU regulations intended for Northern Ireland. The Joint Ministerial Committee will then be able to lodge an objection, which may then result in the EU voluntarily choosing to disapply the regulation in Northern Ireland.

Alternatively, the Speaker of the Stormont Assembly could put the issue to a vote, which could delay when the forthcoming regulation comes into force. If the EU decides to take legal action because of a failure to implement the rule, then a Northern Ireland court would have to rule on the issue first, resulting in further delays.

This movement is likely to be welcomed by some. But this is arguably the biggest area of compromise for Brexiteers and unionists, since it does not give the outright veto on future EU regulations, which is something the DUP want.

The third change is the one revealed at the start of this article: that control of the so-called level playing field of measures, like VAT rates and state subsidy policy, will revert to Westminster. For constitutionalists, this will be seen as an important change.

Almost complete for some time, according to sources, none of this package has been formally briefed to the parties or the public.

Number 10 insists that negotiations are live, but other government sources suggest there is almost no activity still going on, and the principles of the agreement are settled even if there is some haggling on wording still to do.

How the deal was done

Mr Sunak came into office wanting to establish a reputation for sorting out problems, particularly the poor relations with the EU and – to a lesser extent the US – over Brexit.

The PM wanted to ensure President Biden turns up in Northern Ireland for the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement this Easter, meaning he needed to do a deal to ensure the Stormont Assembly was back up and running by then.

For this to happen, the PM needed the DUP to agree to a deal on the Protocol, and then go back into powersharing with Sinn Fein in order to form a government.

So, one key objective throughout these negotiations has been for Mr Sunak to get the hardline unionists on board. It was always a tall order, but it was one he chose to attempt. But it is on precisely this issue that Number 10 took an extraordinary – and some think reckless – gamble.

Despite needing the DUP onside, they decided not to talk to them personally. They decided that they did not want them involved in any way in the negotiations or feeding in thoughts, fearing this would make the talks unmanageable, so they were shut out.

Senior DUP sources tell me there were “no backchannels” to try and scope out what they needed, which they said was a contrast even from the Theresa May era.

Instead, the UK negotiating team were told to look up the DUP’s seven tests for a Northern Ireland Protocol replacement – which feature prominently on their website and in speeches by leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson – and find a solution to each one. One insider described it as the “spreadsheet approach” to the issue.

“We assumed that if you solve the problems in the seven tests, the DUP would be on board. That was certainly the presumption all the way along,” said one government source.

Then in an extraordinary moment three weeks ago, government sources started briefing the newspapers that the deal had successfully answered every one of the DUP’s tests, but without offering an explanation of how or why.

This entire approach flabbergasted the DUP. The tests were drawn up 18 months ago, in another political environment. They range from the broad – number four is “Giving NI people a say in their laws” – to the specific, such as number five, which states “No checks on goods between GB/NI”.

They were devised after conversations with the Johnson government, and were not designed to have a binary answer. Whether the tests were met was to be judged by the DUP alone.

Yet now the government was briefing journalists that the DUP’s concerns had been soothed, and their objections dealt with, without even telling them how.

“These tests weren’t designed to be used in that way”, said one senior DUP member. “If we’d known they were going to assume this level of importance we would have rewritten them and sharpened them”, they said.

Meanwhile, the DUP baulking at the tests has caused huge anger in government. Privately, some accuse the party of game playing and moving the goal posts. The DUP retort that if the goal was to get them on side, they should have opened a dialogue with them in person.

This move worsened the politics, although both sides also acknowledge that however badly Number 10 may have handled this, there was perhaps no deal ever to be made that satisfied both the DUP and the EU.

The trouble is, Downing Street only now appears to be grappling with this outcome afresh, with Brexiteers rowing in behind the DUP to make clear they are going to oppose the deal outlined.

So what next?

It is unclear how the prime minister will proceed. He has three options: press ahead, fully renegotiate or abandon his plan.

If he presses forward in the face of DUP and ERG opposition, he could face trench warfare in the Commons, whether or not any deal is put to a vote.

Mr Sunak would try to become the first Tory PM since 2010 to take on the Eurosceptics and not lose – as David Cameron did ultimately in 2016, then Theresa May did in 2019.

Alternatively, Mr Sunak could fully resume the negotiations, which despite the rhetoric, are mostly on pause at the moment.

However, the EU is unlikely to give more, and cannot bow to the DUP demand that Northern Ireland is no longer bound by future EU rules – for fear of destabilising member states and Norway, which is also in the single market but not the EU.

Or Mr Sunak could abandon the reforms, which would make clear the limits of his power and raise questions about whether he was running a “zombie” regime locked in coalition with truculent and weary Tory MPs.

If he does not do a deal, he will also have to decide whether to press ahead with the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, which would give the UK government unilateral power to rip up the Northern Ireland section of the original Brexit treaty.

Sky News understands that this is facing 90 amendments in the House of Lords, meaning that it is all but impossible to get through without resorting to the Parliament Act – the legislative nuclear option to override a veto by peers.

It is understood the PM is arguing against this in sessions with MPs, suggesting that a bitter parliamentary fight over the passage of the bill would reduce leverage with the EU rather than increase it as the ERG claim.

Mr Sunak has no easy options.

Once he is done with this, the next fight will be over legislation on migration, which some Tories believe will fail unless it goes further than is permitted by the European Convention on Human Rights – something that would enrage the EU all over again. The parade of Tory MPs raising this issue today in PMQs alone made clear the scale of the fight on that.

Meanwhile, within weeks, the privileges committee inquiry into whether former PM Boris Johnson lied at the despatch box will begin, with televised hearings raking over the wounds of one of the most painful episodes of recent Tory history.

The prime minister may have calmed things down, but there are toxic challenges ahead. Can he prove he’s not running a lame duck administration, or will it get worse?

Click to subscribe to the Sophy Ridge on Sunday podcast

The presumption in Westminster is the next general election will take place in the back half of next year.

But it only takes 37 Tory MPs to defy the PM and vote in a confidence vote alongside the opposition to trigger an election. Could things get that heated?

World

Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US

Published

3 hours ago

July 3, 2025

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Iran: Still a chance for peace talks with US

Iran’s foreign ministry has told Sky News there is still a chance for peace talks with the United States.

In an interview in Iran’s foreign ministry in Tehran, a senior Iranian official said despite the attacks on his country by America and Israel, back-channel efforts are under way to restart the search for a diplomatic solution.

The comments will be seen as an olive branch for the Trump administration to seize as it explores a diplomatic way forward.

Sky News is one of only a handful of foreign news organisations allowed access to Iran following its short and devastating war with Israel.

We also filmed the impact of Israel’s attacks on ordinary Iranians in Tehran.

In the wake of a ceasefire declared by Donald Trump, Esmaeil Baqaei, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesman, said the US must show it is genuine in its desire for peace.

“Diplomacy must not be abused or used as a tool for deception or for simply a sort of psychological warfare against their adversaries.”

Iran felt diplomacy had been betrayed, he said. US-Iranian talks were on the verge of reconvening when Israel attacked his country.

And America had breached international law in its support of what he called “Zionist aggression”.

But Mr Baqaei said “diplomacy never ends, there are contacts, indirectly. My minister is talking to Oman, Qatar and others”.

President Trump says he is ready to talk with Iran, but major stumbling blocks need to be overcome.

The US wants Iran to give up nuclear enrichment completely. Iran has long insisted it has the right to carry on.

Across town, we witnessed the impact of Israel’s attacks in Gisha, an upmarket neighbourhood of Tehran.

Israel claims its attacks on Iranian figures were precision-targeted. In reality they appear to have been far from surgical.

The airstrike came at 10.30 Friday morning two weeks ago. It ripped a hole through four floors of reinforced concrete in the residential apartment block.

The target may have been a nuclear scientist living there, but everyone in the building is now without a home. Engineers say it will almost certainly need to be torn down.

The mood in the Iranian capital seems subdued and tense.

Iranians fear Israelis will renew their air campaign despite the ceasefire, but the foreign ministry spokesperson said they “will respond” to any Israeli attack.

There is widespread resentment of the leadership after nationwide social unrest and massive economic problems.

But the Israeli attacks have rallied many Iranians around their government all the same.

They had hoped diplomacy with America could deliver a new deal and an end to sanctions, then Israel began its 12-day aerial onslaught and the US joined in.

Iranians hope somehow talks can be restarted, but they also know the chances of progress are, for now at least, not great.

World

Rise in Gaza deaths linked to aid distributions by controversial group

Published

18 hours ago

July 3, 2025

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Rise in Gaza deaths linked to aid distributions by controversial group

Sky News analysis shows that aid distributions by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) are associated with a significant increase in deaths.

Warning: This article contains descriptions of people being killed and images of blood on a hospital floor.

The US and Israeli-backed group has been primarily responsible for aid distribution since Israel lifted its 11-week blockade of the Gaza Strip last month.

The GHF distributes aid from four militarised Secure Distribution Sites (SDSs) – three of which are in the far south of the Gaza Strip. Under the previous system, the UN had distributed aid through hundreds of sites across the territory.

According to Gaza’s health ministry, 600 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid from GHF sites, which charities and the UN have branded “death traps”.

The UN put the figure at 410, but has not updated this number since 24 June. Both the UN and health ministry source their figures from hospitals near the aid sites.

Speaking to Sky News, GHF chief Johnnie Moore disputed that these deaths were connected with his organisation’s operations.

“Almost anything that happens in the Gaza Strip is going to take place in proximity to something,” he said.

“Our effort is actually working despite a disinformation campaign, that is very deliberate and meant to shut down our efforts.

“We just want to feed Gazans. That’s the only thing that we want to do.”

However, new analysis by Sky’s Data & Forensics Unit shows that deaths in Gaza have spiked during days with more GHF distributions.

On days when GHF conducts just two distributions or fewer, health officials report an average of 48 deaths and 189 injuries across the Gaza Strip.

On days with five or six GHF distributions, authorities have reported almost three times as many casualties.

Out of 77 distributions at GHF sites between 5 June and 1 July, Sky News found that 23 ended in reports of bloodshed (30%).

At one site, SDS4 in the central Gaza Strip, as many as half of all distributions were followed by reports of fatal shootings.

Sky News spoke to one woman who had been attending SDS4 for 10 days straight.

“I witnessed death first-hand – bodies lay bleeding on the ground all around me,” says Huda.

“This is not right. Food should be delivered to UN warehouses, and this entire operation must be shut down.”

Huda says that the crowds are forced to dodge bombs and bullets “just to get a bag of rice or pasta”.

“You may come back, you may not,” she says. “I was injured by shrapnel in my leg. Despite that, I go back, because we really have nothing in our tent.”

One of the deadliest incidents at SDS4 took place in the early hours of 24 June.

According to eyewitnesses, Israeli forces opened fire as people advanced towards aid trucks carrying food to the site, which was due to open.

“It was a massacre,” said Ahmed Halawa. He said that tanks and drones fired at people “even as we were fleeing”. At least 31 people were killed, according to medics at two nearby hospitals.

Footage from that morning shows the floor of one of the hospitals, al Awda, covered in blood.

The IDF says it is reviewing the incident.

Issues of crowd control

Unnamed soldiers who served near the aid sites told Israeli newspaper Haaretz that they were instructed to use gunfire as a method of crowd control.

An IDF spokesperson told Sky News that it “strongly rejected” the accusations that its forces were instructed to deliberately shoot at civilians.

“To be clear, IDF directives prohibit deliberate attacks on civilians,” the spokesperson said, adding that the incidents are “being examined by the relevant IDF authorities”.

Eyewitness testimony and footage posted to social media suggest that crowd control is a frequent problem at the sites.

The video below, uploaded on 12 June, shows a crowd rushing into SDS1, in Gaza’s far southwest. What sounds like explosions are audible in the background.

Footage from the same site, uploaded on 15 June, shows Palestinians searching for food among hundreds of aid parcels scattered across the ground.

Sam Rose, the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, describes the distribution process as a “free-for-all”.

“What they’re doing is they’re loading up the boxes on the ground and then people just rush in,” he says.

Sky News has found that the sites typically run out of food within just nine minutes. In a quarter of cases (23%), the food is finished by the time the site was due to officially open.

Confusing communications

Sky News analysis suggests that the issue may be being compounded by poor communications from GHF.

Between 19 June and 1 July, 86% of distributions were announced with less than 30 minutes’ notice. One in five distributions was not announced at all prior to the site opening.

The GHF instructs Palestinians to take particular routes to the aid centres, and to wait at specified locations until the official opening times.

The map for SDS1 instructs Palestinians to take a narrow agricultural lane that no longer exists, while the maps for SDS2 and SDS3 give waiting points that are deep inside IDF-designated combat zones.

The maps do not make the boundaries of combat zones clear or specify when it is safe for Palestinians to enter them.

The same is true for SDS4, the only distribution site outside Gaza’s far south. Its waiting point is located 1.2 miles (2km) inside an IDF combat zone.

The official map also provides no access route from the northern half of Gaza, including Gaza City, across the heavily militarised Netzarim corridor.

“They don’t know what they’re doing,” says UNRWA’s Sam Rose.

“They don’t have anyone working on these operations who has any experience of operating, of administering food distributions because anyone who did have that experience wouldn’t want to be part of it because this isn’t how you treat people.”

Once the sites are officially open, Palestinians are allowed to travel the rest of the way.

The distance from waiting point to aid site is typically over a kilometre, making it difficult for Palestinians to reach the aid site before the food runs out.

The shortest distance is at SDS4 – 689m. At a pace of 4km per hour, this would take around 10 minutes to cover.

But of the 18 distributions at this site which were announced in advance, just two lasted longer than 10 minutes before the food ran out.

“We don’t have time to pick anything up,” says Huda, who has been visiting SDS4 for the past 10 days.

In all that time, she says, all she had managed to take was a small bag of rice.

“I got it from the floor,” she says. “We didn’t get anything else.”

More than 200 charities and non-governmental organisations have called for the closure of GHF and the reinstatement of previous, UN-led mechanisms of aid distribution.

In a joint statement issued on 1 July, some of the world’s largest humanitarian groups accused the GHF of violating international humanitarian principles. They said the scheme was forcing two million people into overcrowded, militarised zones where they face daily gunfire.

Additional reporting by OSINT producers Sam Doak and Lina-Serene.

The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.

World

Teens unable to walk, mothers with rash-covered babies: Kush is ruining lives – and made with ingredients shipped from the UK

Published

20 hours ago

July 3, 2025

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Teens unable to walk, mothers with rash-covered babies: Kush is ruining lives - and made with ingredients shipped from the UK

A red shipping container sits on the tarmac of Sierra Leone’s Queen Elizabeth II Quay, under swinging cranes and towering stacks of similar steel boxes.

This one will likely be parked at the port permanently. The contents are suspected to be the ingredients of kush, the deadly synthetic drug ravaging Sierra Leone.

Sky News was given access to the container two weeks after it was seized.

“Preliminary testing has shown that these items are kush ingredients,” says the secretary of the Ports Authority, Martin George, as he points to the marked contraband in massive multicoloured Amazon UK bags and a large blue vat of strongly smelling acetone.

He adds: “Shipped from the United Kingdom.”

The container was selected for screening based on its origin. The UK is with the EU and South America on the list of places considered high risk for the import of illicit substances fuelling the drug trade in Sierra Leone and the region.

Kush has shaken this part of West Africa to its core – not just Sierra Leone but Liberia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and the Gambia. It is highly addictive, ever-evolving and affordable.

The sprayed grey-green marshmallow leaves are rolled in a joint like marijuana and are extremely dangerous. Samples of the drug tested by researchers contained nitazens, one of the deadliest synthetic drugs in the world.

“It was a shock to find them in around half of the kush samples we tested, as at that point there was no public evidence they had reached Africa,” says Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo from Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC) who independently tested kush from Sierra Leone.

“Nitazenes are among the deadliest drugs available on retail drug markets across the world – with one nitazene in kush in Freetown being 25 times stronger than fentanyl,” she added.

The shocking effects of its potency can be seen on the bodies of young men and women around Freetown. Teenagers with sores eating away at their legs, unable to walk. Mothers who smoked during pregnancy carrying sickly rash-covered infants. Young men drooling from the intense high and slumped over while still standing.

They are not the fringes of Sierra Leonean society but a growing demographic of kush users searching for an escape. People riddled by poverty and unemployment, living in the dark corners of a capital city which has endured a brutal civil war and Ebola epidemic in the last three decades alone.

An entire community of men and women of all ages is held together by kush addiction under a main road that cuts through the heart of Freetown.

They call themselves the “Under de Bridge family” and live in the shadows of the overpass, surrounded by the sewage and rubbish discarded by their neighbours.

One of them tells us the harsh conditions drive him to keep smoking kush even after losing more than 10 friends to the drug – killed by large infected sores and malnutrition.

Nearby, 17-year-old Ibrahim is pained by growing sores and says the drug is destroying his life.

“This drug is evil. This drug is bad. I don’t know why they gave me this drug in this country. Our brothers are suffering. Some are dying, some have sores on their feet. This drug brings destruction,” he says.

“Look at me – just because of this drug. I have sores on my feet.”

Across a stream of sewage, a young mother expecting her second child cries from fear and anguish when I ask her about the risk of smoking while pregnant.

“Yes, I know the risk,” Elizabeth says, nodding.

“I’ll keep smoking while I live here but I have nowhere else to go. It helps me forget my worries and challenges.”

Life under the bridge is disrupted from its sleepiness by a yell. A plain-clothed police officer is chasing a child accused of selling kush.

The lucrative industry is absorbing all age groups and spreading rapidly to nearby countries – even passing through three different borders to reach the smallest nation in mainland Africa, The Gambia.

Gambian law enforcement has cracked down on spreading kush use with regular zero tolerance drug raids. The small population is extremely vulnerable and the country is yet to open its first rehabilitation centre. Rising xenophobia seems to be mostly directed at Sierra Leonean immigrants who they blame for smuggling kush into the country.

We spoke to one man from Sierra Leone who was arrested for dealing kush in The Gambia and spent a year in prison. He says that though he feels saddened other Sierra Leoneans are being alienated as a result of the trade he was involved in, he has no remorse for “following orders”.

“Do I feel guilty for selling it? No, I don’t feel guilty. I’m not using my money to buy the kush, people always give me money to get kush for them,” he tells Sky News anonymously.

“I needed a job. I needed to take care of my son.”

Gambia’s hardline approach has been credited with driving its local kush industry underground rather than eradicating it but is still hailed as the most impactful strategy in the region. Sierra Leone’s government told Sky News it needs help from surrounding countries and the UK to tackle the sprawling crisis.

Transnational crime experts like Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo see the rise of kush as part of a global synthetic drugs network that requires a multi-national response.

“Coordinated action is urgently needed across the supply chain, particularly focused on nitazenes – the deadliest kush component,” says Ms Bird.

“Our research indicated that kush components are being imported to West Africa from countries in Asia and Europe, likely including the UK. All countries in the supply chain bear responsibility to act to mitigate the devastating and expanding impacts of kush across West Africa, a region with scarce resources to respond.”

Sky News’ Africa correspondent wins award

Yousra Elbagir has been named a winner of the International Women’s Media Foundation 2025 Courage in Journalism Awards.

She has chronicled the current war in Sudan, which has displaced more than 13 million people, including her own family.

Recently, Elbagir led the only television news crew to document the fall of Goma – the regional capital of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo – to M23 rebels backed by Rwanda.

In the past year, her reports from the frontlines of Sudan’s war have broadcast massive scenes of devastation inside a global humanitarian crisis.

She said: “Our job as journalists is to reveal the truth and inform the public. Sometimes, it’s about exposing the misdeeds of the powerful. Other times, it’s about capturing the scale and depth of human suffering. Our job is also getting more difficult: Information wars and contempt for legacy media is growing by the day, which makes our job even more important.”

Elbagir added: “It is an honour to receive the IWMF Courage Award and join the ranks of such incredible women journalists. The courage to share the truth in our polarised world is at the heart of public service journalism and to be recognised for it is truly affirming – it gives me faith that people are listening.”