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

3 years ago

February 26, 2023

admin

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

Putin, Xi, and Kim set to unite at major military parade

Published

1 hour ago

August 28, 2025

admin

Putin, Xi, and Kim set to unite at major military parade

Kim Jong Un will join Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin at a major military parade in Beijing next week, North Korean and Chinese state media have announced.

The dictator will make the rare trip abroad as China marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War.

Mr Putin’s presence had already been confirmed. He and Mr Kim will be among 26 foreign leaders at the event, with none expected from the US or Western Europe.

China, Russia, and North Korea are close allies. Beijing has long been Pyongyang’s biggest aid and trading partner, while Mr Kim has been providing the Russian president with troops for his war in Ukraine.

There are currently no details of exactly when and for how long Mr Kim will be in China. It’s set to be his first visit in some six years – before the pandemic.

Hong Lei, assistant foreign minister of China, said the country would “warmly welcome” Mr Kim and that “maintaining, consolidating, and developing” relations between the two countries’ governments was a priority.

Asked what message China was sending by hosting Mr Putin, Mr Lei said the Russian president’s attendance at commemorative events “further demonstrates the high level of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era and declares the unity and solidarity between China and Russia”.

He added: “Facing an international landscape fraught with both change and turmoil, China and Russia, as founding members of the UN and permanent members of the Security Council, will continue to uphold the authority of the United Nations and international fairness and justice.”

It may not be the last of Mr Kim’s major global summits of the year, with Donald Trump having said earlier this week he fancies another meeting with the North Korean.

The pair had an unprecedented meeting during the US president’s first term, and he’s suggested they could reunite later this year.

World

Minneapolis: Two children dead and 17 people injured in US school shooting

Published

7 hours ago

August 28, 2025

admin

Minneapolis: Two children dead and 17 people injured in US school shooting

Two children, aged eight and 10, have been killed in a shooting during mass at a school in Minneapolis.

An attacker opened fire with a rifle through the windows of a church at Annunciation Catholic School and struck a group of children as they sat in pews on Wednesday morning.

The FBI has confirmed the killer has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman, and is investigating the shooting as an “act of domestic terrorism” and a “hate crime targeting Catholics”.

As it happened: FBI says attack investigated as ‘terrorism’

The city’s police chief Brian O’Hara said the attacker – armed with a rifle, shotgun, and pistol – approached the side of the church and fired dozens of rounds as mass was celebrated during the first week of term.

He added that 17 other people were injured, including 14 children, two of whom were in a critical condition.

Police believe the suspect, thought to be in his early 20s and acting alone, died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Mr O’Hara called the attack in Minnesota a “deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshipping”.

“The sheer cruelty and cowardice of firing into a church full of children is absolutely incomprehensible.”

He also said a wooden plank had been used to barricade some side doors.

Authorities found a smoke bomb but no explosives at the scene, Mr O’Hara said.

Three adults in 80s among those injured

Hennepin Healthcare, the main trauma hospital in Minneapolis, received 11 patients, including nine children – aged six to 14 – and two adults, emergency medicine chair Dr Thomas Wyatt said.

He said four of the patients were taken to operating rooms.

Children’s Minnesota, a paediatric trauma hospital, said in a statement that five children were admitted.

At a later news conference, Mr O’Hara said three adults in their 80s are among those injured in the attack.

He added that Westman had scheduled a manifesto to be released on YouTube, which “appeared to show him at the scene and included some disturbing writings”.

The video has since been taken down with the assistance of the FBI.

‘So much’ gunfire, witness says

Bill Bienemann, a witness to the shooting, told Sky News it went on “for several minutes – a long time for live gunfire”.

“I know what gunfire sounds like, and I was shocked,” he added. “I said there’s no way that could be gunfire, there was so much of it.

“It seemed like a rifle, it certainly didn’t sound like a handgun, so he must have reloaded several times.”

The pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school had an all-school mass scheduled at 8.15am local time on Wednesday morning (2.15pm UK time), according to its website.

Monday was the first day of the school semester.

Mayor calls shooting ‘unspeakable act’

At the first news conference, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said the shooting was an “unspeakable act”.

“Children are dead,” he said. “There are families that have a deceased child. You cannot put into words the gravity, the tragedy, or the absolute pain of this situation.”

Speaking later, and joined by Governor Tim Walz, Mr Frey said that the “Minneapolis family” has stepped up in “thousands of different ways” after the shooting.

“The way that they acted during the severe threat and danger was nothing short of heroic,” he says.

“This is a tragic and horrible event that should never occur.”

He added: “Anybody who is using this as an opportunity to villainise our trans community or any other community out there has lost their sense of common humanity.”

Mr Walz said: “We often come to these and say these are unspeakable tragedies or there are no words for this, there shouldn’t be words for these types of incidents because they shouldn’t happen.”

The school’s headteacher Matt DeBoer added: “To any of our students and families and staff watching right now, I love you. You’re so brave, and I’m so sorry this happened.”

Senator: Girl ‘had to watch several of her friends get shot’

Speaking to MSNBC, Democratic senator Amy Klobuchar said she had called one of her longtime employees who had three children in the school during the shooting.

The senator described the call with the mother as “one of the most upsetting things I’ve ever heard”.

“These kids are doing an all-school mass and had to watch several of her friends get shot – one in the back, one in the neck,” Ms Klobuchar added.

“And they all got down under the pews and she – her daughter, of course, was not shot – but her daughter ended up being the one to tell one of the dads of one of the other kids that his daughter had been shot.”

Responding to the reports, US President Donald Trump said on Truth Social: “I have been fully briefed on the tragic shooting in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

“The FBI quickly responded and they are on the scene. The White House will continue to monitor this terrible situation.”

World

UN told Israeli strike on Gaza hospital was ‘premeditated’ – as Sky News uncovers new details about the attack

Published

10 hours ago

August 27, 2025

admin

UN told Israeli strike on Gaza hospital was 'premeditated' - as Sky News uncovers new details about the attack

The Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations has condemned Israel’s attack on Nasser Hospital as “a premeditated strike on medics and journalists”.

The envoy’s comments are the latest condemnation of the 25 August attack that killed 22 people, including five journalists. They come as an investigation by Sky News raises new questions about the incident.

The IDF said the strike targeted an “observation camera” used by Hamas to monitor troop movements from the hospital, adding that six of those killed were “terrorists”.

But the camera that the IDF struck was broadcasting a live stream for the news agency Reuters, and the IDF has said that the journalist operating this camera was “not a target”.

The Israeli military has not indicated that any other camera was on the balcony, and the hospital’s director says the only person on the balcony was the Reuters journalist.

Sky News did find evidence that one of the six people named by the IDF was a militant, but we also found evidence that he was killed in a separate incident, not at Nasser Hospital.

Most of those killed died when the IDF launched a second strike on the same stairwell, around eight minutes after the first, as rescue efforts were under way. Video seen by Sky News shows two missiles hitting the hospital in the second strike.

Speaking at the UN Security Council on 27 August, Palestinian UN envoy Riyad Mansour said: “The second strike on Nasser hospital was a premeditated strike on medics and journalists who arrived at the scene after the first strike.

“While the world demands a permanent ceasefire, Israel continues its crimes. Where else is the killing of so many civilians and journalists tolerated?”

Here’s what we know

At around 10am on Monday 25 August, journalist Hossam Al Masri, 49, was operating a Reuters live stream from the top floor of Nasser Hospital, in Khan Younis.

Footage from the livestream shows Hossam filming the busy market outside the hospital, before raising the camera and zooming in on a cloud of black smoke rising in the distance.

At that moment, the feed froze. Reports emerged, starting at 10.09am, of an explosion at the hospital.

Soon, footage showed smoke rising over the building, and a chunk of concrete missing from the exterior stairwell where Hossam had been filming.

Journalists and rescue workers quickly rushed to the site in search of survivors. They found two bodies, including Hossam’s.

At 10.17am, as rescue efforts continued, a second Israeli strike hit the stairwell.

Three loud bangs could be heard at the moment of impact.

Footage from the ground shows at least two projectiles impacting in quick succession, with just milliseconds between them.

An Israeli military official told the Press Association that the strikes were carried out by tanks.

Amael Kotlarski, weapons team manager at defence intelligence company Janes, told Sky News that the shape of the projectile and resulting damage is consistent with powered, precision-guided munitions such as Lahat laser-guided missiles.

These can be fired from tanks or helicopters. “The IDF is known to have stocks of the air-launched version, it is unclear if the gun-launched version were procured,” he says.

“If these Lahats were fired from the ground, then at least two tanks would have been involved, as the interval between the two impacts is far too short.”

Sky News analysis of the footage suggests that the projectiles were fired from the northeast.

Satellite imagery taken approximately five hours after the attack shows six tanks stationed at a fortified base around 2.4km northeast of the hospital, though Sky News is unable to say whether they were involved in the attack.

Why did Israel attack the hospital?

Footage filmed from the ground shows smoke billowing out of the hospital as people flee.

As the smoke cleared, rescue workers returned to the scene. What they saw is too graphic to publish – at least seven bodies scattered throughout the stairwell.

Health officials have since put the total number killed at 22, including a rescue worker, a doctor, three hospital staff and five journalists.

On Tuesday, the IDF said that Israeli troops had targeted a camera “that was positioned by Hamas in the area of the Nasser Hospital [and] that was being used to observe the activity of IDF troops”.

However, Sky News has confirmed that the initial strike hit Reuters cameraman Hossam Al Masri, who was operating a livestream for the international news agency at the time of the attack.

Footage from the aftermath of the first strike shows that it hit the top balcony on the hospital’s exterior stairwell.

Sky News was able to confirm that the livestream recorded by Hossam was taken from this balcony, based on the buildings visible and a wooden beam obstructing the camera’s field of view.

This conclusion is supported by eyewitness testimony, as well as the fact that the feed cut unexpectedly, but without showing any attack on the hospital, and that Al Masri’s death was the first to be reported, at 10.18am.

The IDF said that Al Masri was “not a target” of the strike. It did not specify whether his camera was the same one it believes was positioned and used by Hamas.

The IDF has not suggested that there was any other camera on the balcony.

Speaking to Sky News on Wednesday, the director of Nasser Hospital, Dr Atef Al Hout, said that Hossam “was the only one on that floor in that moment”.

On Monday, Israeli outlet Channel 12 published an undated aerial photograph of a camera, shared by an anonymous military source, which Sky News matched to the same balcony.

The unnamed source pointed to a white towel placed over the camera as evidence that it was being concealed.

Medics and journalists at Nasser Hospital told Sky News that towels, such as the one visible in the photo, are used to prevent cameras from overheating, and this specific location is frequently used by media workers.

Reuters had been delivering daily livestreams from the position for several weeks before the attack.

And the video below, uploaded on 10 June, shows multiple journalists using the space to record video or get phone signal.

Among those visible in the video are journalists Mariam Abu Daqqa and Mohammed Salama, who were killed in Monday’s attack.

“This is among the deadliest Israeli attacks on journalists working for international media since the Gaza war began,” the Foreign Press Association said in a statement on Monday, adding the strikes came “with no warning”.

Brian Finucane, who spent a decade advising the US State Department on conflict law, says hospitals are protected from attack under international law.

“Hospitals may lose this protection if they are used to commit acts harmful to the enemy outside of their normal humanitarian function – but only if prior advance warning is given to allow for the termination of such harmful acts,” he says.

Former United States Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Stephen Rapp told Sky News that “an independent investigation is clearly warranted”.

Sky News asked the IDF whether any advance warning was provided to the hospital, but did not receive a response to this question.

Hamas denied using the camera targeted by the IDF, describing this allegation as “a baseless allegation devoid of any evidence, intended solely to evade legal and moral responsibility for a fully-fledged massacre”.

Who was killed?

In its statement on Tuesday, the IDF said that six of those killed were “terrorists” and part of Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

Sky News examined social media pages and obituaries for each of these six people.

We found evidence that one of those named, Omar Abu Teim, had been a combatant.

But while obituaries by family and friends of the other five individuals all reference the attack on Nasser Hospital, those for Abu Teim do not.

A neighbour and childhood friend of Abu Teim’s told us he had died while taking part in an attack on a new IDF position east of Khan Younis – not at Nasser Hospital.

A Hamas-branded obituary identifies Abu Teim as a “hero of the storming of the new site” alongside four others. Sky News has not been able to verify whether Abu Teim was formally part of Hamas or a different militant group.

Ramy Abdu of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor told Sky News his team saw the Abu Teim family searching for their son’s body the day before the hospital strike, adding that the body has still not been recovered.

Abu Teim’s neighbour also said his body has not been recovered, and Gaza’s health ministry told Sky News it had not received his body in any of its hospitals.

The IDF told Sky News it was examining whether Abu Teim was killed in a separate incident.

Hamas has denied that any of its fighters were killed in the attack on Nasser Hospital.

No explanation given for second strike

The Israeli military has not explained the reason for the second strike on the stairwell, which occurred while rescue efforts were under way and caused the greatest number of deaths.

Such ‘double-tap’ strikes carry significant risks for emergency personnel and journalists, who often gather at the scene of attacks.

Sky News asked the IDF who was being targeted in the second strike, but the military did not respond to this question.

Emily Tripp, executive director of conflict monitoring group Airwars, says that double-tap strikes are something they have seen “consistently” throughout the war, although the intensity of the bombardment has made it difficult to confirm timings.

Her team has documented 24 separate double-tap strikes across Gaza since the war began.

At least 190 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The Aid Worker Security Database has also documented 536 killings of aid and rescue workers as of 2 August. This number does not include the 139 reported deaths among workers from Gaza’s Civil Defence rescue agency.

Reuters did not respond to a request for comment.

Additional reporting by Freya Gibson, OSINT producer, and production by Michelle Inez Simon and Celine Al Khaldi.

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.