A group of Eurosceptic MPs has described the Stormont brake – a key part of Rishi Sunak’s renegotiated Brexit deal – “practically useless”.
Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group (ERG), spoke after the group commissioned its “star chamber” of legal experts to pore over the Windsor Framework, the UK’s deal with the EU on post-Brexit arrangements when it comes to Northern Ireland.
Mr Francois said that among its initial findings were that EU law was “supreme” in Northern Irelandand that the rights of its people secured in the 1800 Act of Union had still not been restored.
And in his harshest criticism, he said the Stormont brake – the mechanism that would allow a minority of politicians in Belfast to formally flag concerns about the imposition of new EU laws in Northern Ireland – was “practically useless”.
However, he said the ERG would meet again on Wednesday before deciding its approach to a Commons vote on the brake scheduled to take place on the same day.
The ERG’s criticisms of the Windsor Framework will be a blow to the prime minister, who had been hoping to secure widespread approval for his Brexit deal.
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While Mr Sunak does not need the votes of the DUP and ERG to get the legislation through parliament, he will not want to rely on Labour’s approval and will be looking to limit the size of any potential Tory rebellion.
Downing Street rejected the ERG’s criticism, with the prime minister’s spokesman saying the Stormont brake “addresses the democratic deficit and provides a clear democratic safeguard for the people of Northern Ireland”.
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3:33
Sir Jeffery Donaldson DUP leader says Brexit deal ‘not sufficient’
Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris told the European Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday his primary objective is to get the Stormont Executive and Assembly up and running after the DUP refused to form a government early last year over the Northern Ireland Protocol.
He insisted the Windsor Framework protects the economic rights of the people in Northern Ireland and deals with the everyday issues people and businesses have faced due to the Brexit protocol.
In a statement on Monday, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said while the Windsor Framework represented “significant progress” in addressing concerns with the Northern Ireland Protocol, it did not deal with some of the “fundamental problems at the heart of our current difficulties”.
Sir Jeffrey said the brake “is not designed for, and therefore cannot apply, to the EU law which is already in place and for which no consent has been given for its application”.
“Whilst representing real progress, the ‘brake’ does not deal with the fundamental issue which is the imposition of EU law by the protocol,” he added.
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DUP to oppose Windsor Framework
The NI protocol was agreed as part of Boris Johnson’s “oven ready” Brexit deal and was designed to prevent a hard border in the interests of preserving the peace secured in the Good Friday Agreement.
But the protocol has led to unhappiness in the DUP, who say it has created trade barriers between Great Britain and Northern Ireland and undermined its place in the UK.
Last February the DUP pulled out of the arrangement for devolved government in Northern Ireland in protest at the protocol, effectively leaving the region without government.
The UK and Brussels agreed the Windsor Framework as a way to incentivise the return of power-sharing in Northern Ireland and to allay some of the key concerns of Unionists.
Under the agreement there will now be a green lane for goods that are destined for Northern Ireland will no longer be subject to time-consuming paperwork, checks and duties.
But Mr Francois said that the green lane “is not really a green lane at all”.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said on Tuesday that the Windsor Agreement was a “good deal” for the people of Northern Ireland that went “significantly beyond” the previous protocol.
The spokesperson said the Stormont Brake was a “significant step change in what had previously been agreed” and that it had dealt with the “democratic deficit” flagged by the DUP, whereby EU laws apply in Northern Ireland without the influence of politicians in Stormont.
The Stormont Brake remains the “only avenue” to change Northern Ireland’s status as being automatically aligned to EU rules, they added.
“A vote against the brake, in factual terms, would lead to automatic alignment with the EU with no say at all,” the spokesman said.
The drive into the village of Jiljiliya is not what you expect on the West Bank. Imposing mansions line the route, with grand gates and lavish decorations.
That’s because this is where Palestinian Americans return to build their dream homes after years of hard work in the land of opportunity.
Like Omar Assad who came back after 45 years in Milwaukee. But for him, retirement was neither long nor happy. It was cut brutally short one freezing night in January 2022.
He was returning from a game of cards when he was stopped at a makeshift checkpoint set up by the notorious Israeli army unit, Netzah Yehuda.
The IDF says he did not cooperate so the 78-year-old was detained with force.
Mraweh Mahmoud was with him.
“They took us down from the car and pushed me by the head,” he told Sky News. “The soldier was standing there and put an M16 in my head and said now I’ll shoot you.”
Mr Assad was tied up, gagged and blindfolded, Mr Mahmoud said, and forced to lie next to him. When the soldiers eventually left Mr Mahmoud realised Mr Assad was dead.
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“I took his jacket off his head, I checked there’s no pulse, I shouted Omar, Omar,” he said.
Palestinian doctors say Mr Assad died in freezing temperatures of a stress-induced heart attack. An Israeli military report condemned the soldiers’ “moral failure and poor decision-making”.
No link between death and soldiers’ errors, military prosecutors say
Netzah Yehuda’s battalion commander was reprimanded and two officers were dismissed but Israeli military prosecutors decided against pursuing criminal charges because they said there was no link between the errors made by soldiers and Mr Assad’s death.
But now the unit the soldiers came from is expected to be singled out by the US government and cut off from American funding, in the first-ever such move against any part of the Israeli military.
Reports claim the US State Department will apply the so-called Leahy Law against the unit, which prohibits US assistance to foreign military units guilty of gross human rights violations when their government fails to take sufficient action.
Why has Netzah Yehuda become infamous?
The Netzah Yehuda battalion was set up to help ultra-orthodox Jews serve in the army. It mixes religion and soldiering. But in its ranks are also elements of extremist settler groups.
It has become infamous, implicated in one case of alleged abuse of Palestinians after another, many of which its soldiers have filmed on their own phones. Its soldiers have been prosecuted for human rights violations and accused of unlawful killings, electrocution, torture and sexual assault.
Israel’s government has fought a rearguard action against the looming US action.
Its prime minister called the prospect absurd and its defence minister Yoav Galant showed solidarity with the battalion’s soldiers this week saying “no one in the world can teach us about morals and values”.
But one organisation of ex-soldiers opposed to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories says the Israeli government knows this could be just the beginning of action against its military.
‘They’re terrified of the possible results’
Ori Givati from the NGO Breaking the Silence told Sky News: “They understand that this might open the Pandora’s box of what the occupation really is, and how it looks like to occupy millions with the military.
“And if that Pandora’s box will be opened and it is starting to open in recent months, I think they’re terrified of the possible results because they want to continue to occupy.”
Back in Jilijilya, Mr Assad’s family welcomes reports America will act against the soldiers they blame for his death but say that’s not enough – they want them brought to justice too.
Nazmia, Mr Assad’s widow, said: “God willing it will be good if they do this, but also punish them like what they did with him, arrest them and fire them from their positions.”
The parents of an Israeli hostage have told him “we love you, stay strong, survive” after he appeared with part of his arm missing in a video released by Hamas.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped at the Nova musical festival when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
The video shows him with his lower left arm missing; witnesses said it was blown off when he helped throw grenades out of a shelter where people were hiding.
He reportedly used his shirt as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding, but was captured.
Clearly under duress in the undated video, the 23-year-old criticises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying they should be “ashamed” for not securing the hostages’ release.
He also claims Israeli bombings have killed “about 70 detainees like me” and that the rest are living in an “underground hell without water, food, or sun”.
Mr Goldberg-Polin, who wears a red shirt and sits against a plain white wall, finishes with an appeal to his parents, telling them “stay strong” and “I love you so much, and miss you so much”.
His parents responded to Wednesday’s video by filming their own emotional response.
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Jon Polin says hearing his son for the first time in more than 200 days is “overwhelming”.
“We are relieved to see him alive but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages, and all of those suffering in this region,” he says.
Mr Polin calls for the countries involved in negotiations to “be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region”.
His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, stares resolutely into the camera and tells him: “Hersh, if you can hear his, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days… I am telling you – we are telling you – we love you, stay strong, survive.”
The 23-year-old was born in California but moved to Jerusalem with his family when he was younger.
He was among about 250 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped in the initial Hamas attack, which also killed around 1,200 people.
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Baby saved from womb of dying mother
Israel’s aim to wipe out Hamas has so far killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health authority.
Hundreds of thousands are also said to be on the brink of starvation and have been forced to flee the violence.
Fears are growing that a ground assault on the southern city of Rafah – where more than a million people are sheltering – is imminent after Mr Netanyahu said Israel was “moving ahead” with its plans.
“Because it’s built to withstand both biological and chemical attacks,” Dr Yehezkel Caine told Sky News as we entered the complex, “we have an airlock which is built of two separate sets of blast doors”.
Beyond they have installed a whole new level of wards below the existing underground hospital, ripping out a logistics floor and installing more beds and equipment.
The bunkers would be activated should other hospitals closer to the front need evacuating.
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They are planning for worst-case scenarios here like an all-out war with Hezbollah.
“The hospitals in the north will be overwhelmed with casualties and they themselves will come under fire, in which case they would have to evacuate their patients to the centre of the country, the same as we did in the first weeks of the war in the south,” said Dr Caine.
He and his staff know the 7 October attack last year by Hamas and Iran‘s missile and drone barrage earlier this month have changed everything for the people of Israel.
“For the civilian population since the war of independence we’ve never been in a situation where the threat to the civilian population has been as great,” he said.
Above ground, the Herzog Medical Centre continues with its peacetime specialisms.
It has Israel’s largest ventilator unit, treating adults and children, but also excels in psycho-trauma treatment and geriatric rehabilitation.
Many of those suffering PTSD from the trauma in this conflict are treated here.