Windsor Framework: Government wins Brexit deal vote – despite Tory rebellion and DUP anger

Published

2 years ago

March 22, 2023

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The government has won support in parliament for part of its new Brexit deal by 515 votes to 29, despite a rebellion from some of its own MPs and a backlash from members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris said the Stormont brake was “one of the most significant changes” in the post-Brexit plan for the region – “a robust change that gives the UK a veto over dynamic alignment with EU rules”.

But former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss refused to back the policy, with Mr Johnson saying it would mean the “whole of the UK” was unable “properly to diverge and take advantage of Brexit”.

And DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said he cannot commit his party “will restore the political institutions” in Northern Ireland as a result of the deal.

Politics live: Johnson’s career on line as he faces privileges committee

Priti Patel, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Sir Jake Berry were also among the other high profile names to against the measure – a total of 22 Tories, six DUP MPs and one independent.

But hundreds more from across the Commons, including 280 Conservatives, backed the government’s plan.

Rishi Sunak reached the new Brexit agreement, known as the Windsor Framework, in February with the European Commission in an attempt to fix ongoing issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Unionists have been refusing to form a government in the region while the protocol is in place, saying it had created trade barriers in the Irish Sea and threatened Northern Ireland’s place in the UK’s internal market.

The prime minister said his plan, including new trade lanes, the reduction in EU laws, and the so-called Stormont brake – to stop changes to or new laws being brought in from the EU – offered a better future for Northern Ireland post-Brexit.

But the measures have not won over pro-Brexit Tories who form the European Research Group (ERG) or the DUP, who believe the EU will still have too much of a say over what happens in Northern Ireland.

Rebels hurt unity – but numbers were small

The government will see today’s result as a rebellion contained.

A total of 22 Conservatives voted against part of Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal, including (as expected) Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.

Former prime ministers, and ex-ministers like Priti Patel and Jake Berry, openly rejecting the PM’s deal does not help with any sense of party unity.

But the number did not surpass 34 – the point at which Mr Sunak would have been relying on Labour votes.

As Rishi Sunak seeks to pitch himself as someone who can deliver and heal party divisions, it is not a terrible result.

Tory Brexit battles may yet resurface, and there were a number of abstentions.

But as one former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith put it: “A chapter is over”.

Mr Sunak promised to give MPs a say on the plan in the Commons – and today they were given a vote specifically on the Stormont brake – the result of which would be seen by Number 10 as approving the whole deal.

A number of Conservative politicians gave the plan their support, with former Northern Ireland secretary Julian Smith saying the framework had made “huge strides”.

He pointed to polls in the region that showed the majority of Northern Ireland voters backed the plan, adding: “We must cherish, nurture and expand that support and consent at every opportunity.”

Conservative former minister Vicky Ford, who grew up in Northern Ireland, echoed his point, adding: “The people of Northern Ireland, and indeed the people in the UK, need to move on.”

But Tory former minister Sir John Redwood said: “What is the point of rushing through a vote on this protocol when it is the protocol and the agreement behind it that prevents Stormont meeting, which means the protocol would never be used?”

The new agreement got the backing of Labour, with shadow Northern Ireland secretary Peter Kyle saying: “My party will be voting in unanimity today. It is [the Conservative] party that is getting in the way of getting this across the line, because it is [their] party that is split over how to vote on the issue before today.

“We are acting in the national interest. They are riven with division.”

The Liberal Democrats also gave their support. Speaking afterwards, MP Layla Moran said: “Conservative MPs are like mutinous pirates who no longer care what their captain says. After today’s latest debacle, it is time they abandoned ship and made way for serious politicians.”

However, DUP MP Jim Shannon also believed the framework was being “shoved” through, and saw the UK giving the EU “sovereignty over the courts and power over Northern Ireland”.

He added: “It… is being shoved through the House by the government – the Conservative and Unionist Party. With some dismay I actually question now, Conservative, and where is the unionist?”

Sir Jeffrey said his party would continue to “work intensively to solve these issues… in the knowledge that what has already been achieved has been because we were not prepared to accept the undermining of Northern Ireland’s place within the union of the United Kingdom”.

UK

Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Published

49 mins ago

July 5, 2025

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Rachel Reeves hints at tax rises in autumn budget after welfare bill U-turn

Rachel Reeves has hinted that taxes are likely to be raised this autumn after a major U-turn on the government’s controversial welfare bill.

Sir Keir Starmer’s Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill passed through the House of Commons on Tuesday after multiple concessions and threats of a major rebellion.

MPs ended up voting for only one part of the plan: a cut to universal credit (UC) sickness benefits for new claimants from £97 a week to £50 from 2026/7.

Initially aimed at saving £5.5bn, it now leaves the government with an estimated £5.5bn black hole – close to breaching Ms Reeves’s fiscal rules set out last year.

In an interview with The Guardian, the chancellor did not rule out tax rises later in the year, saying there were “costs” to watering down the welfare bill.

“I’m not going to [rule out tax rises], because it would be irresponsible for a chancellor to do that,” Ms Reeves told the outlet.

“We took the decisions last year to draw a line under unfunded commitments and economic mismanagement.

“So we’ll never have to do something like that again. But there are costs to what happened.”

Meanwhile, The Times reported that, ahead of the Commons vote on the welfare bill, Ms Reeves told cabinet ministers the decision to offer concessions would mean taxes would have to be raised.

The outlet reported that the chancellor said the tax rises would be smaller than those announced in the 2024 budget, but that she is expected to have to raise tens of billions more.

It comes after Ms Reeves said she was “totally” up to continuing as chancellor after appearing tearful at Prime Minister’s Questions.

Criticising Sir Keir for the U-turns on benefit reform during PMQs, Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch said the chancellor looked “absolutely miserable”, and questioned whether she would remain in post until the next election.

Sir Keir did not explicitly say that she would, and Ms Badenoch interjected to say: “How awful for the chancellor that he couldn’t confirm that she would stay in place.”

In her first comments after the incident, Ms Reeves said she was having a “tough day” before adding: “People saw I was upset, but that was yesterday.

“Today’s a new day and I’m just cracking on with the job.”

Sir Keir also told Sky News’ political editor Beth Rigby on Thursday that he “didn’t appreciate” that Ms Reeves was crying in the Commons.

“In PMQs, it is bang, bang, bang,” he said. “That’s what it was yesterday.

“And therefore, I was probably the last to appreciate anything else going on in the chamber, and that’s just a straightforward human explanation, common sense explanation.”

UK

Diogo Jota and Andre Silva’s funeral in pictures

Published

2 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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Diogo Jota and Andre Silva's funeral in pictures

The family and friends of Diogo Jota and his brother Andre Silva have been joined by Liverpool stars past and present and other Portuguese players at the pair’s funeral near Porto.

The Liverpool forward, 28, and his brother died in a car crash in Spain on Thursday.

Pictures below show the funeral at the Igreja Matriz de Gondomar church in the town of Gondomar near Porto. Click here for our liveblog coverage of the day’s events.

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Miguell Rocha played with Jota for around ten years with Gondomar Sport Clube in Portugal.

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The former captain was seen wiping away tears as he read messages and laid his tribute down.

UK

How Britain’s most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective’s talk

Published

7 hours ago

July 5, 2025

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How Britain's most notorious gangster turned up at a charity lunch to fact-check a retired detective's talk

Britain’s most notorious gangster and the detective who pursued him have been involved in a bizarre confrontation…at a charity lunch.

Former Detective Superintendent Ian Brown was at a Kent golf club and about to give a talk on the infamous £26m Brink’s-Mat gold robbery when he was summoned from the stage by officials.

Mr Brown, who appeared on the award-winning Sky News StoryCast podcast The Hunt For The Brink’s-Mat Gold in 2019, said: “I go outside and they say ‘he’s here’ and I say ‘who’s here’ and they say that table over there in the corner, that’s Kenny Noye with a baseball cap pulled down over his head.”

Noye stabbed to death an undercover policeman during the Brink’s-Mat investigation, but was acquitted of murder, though he was jailed for handling the stolen gold.

After his release, he used a knife again in the M25 road-rage murder of motorist Stephen Cameron.

“They said what are we going to do?” said Mr Brown.

“I said are you serving food? Well, just use plastic knives.”

Although Mr Brown had not personally arrested Noye over Brink’s-Mat he had identified him as a suspect months after the robbery.

Years later he met him during an ill-fated TV interview in which he quizzed him about his role in the robbery.

He said: “He told me everything I wanted to know except the truth. He still insists he had nothing to do with it.”

The interview was never broadcast after the prison authorities threatened to send Noye back to jail for a breach of his parole.

Mr Brown, 86, said: “I went over to him and said ‘thanks for coming, nice of you to pop in’, but I don’t believe you’ve turned up with your sons and grandkids to listen to me telling how you killed a police officer.

“And he said ‘I want to make sure you don’t say I’ve been dealing drugs’ and I said ‘I’ve never said that Kenny’.”

The retired detective told Noye he wasn’t going to change his presentation just because he was there.

“He said ‘mate, I wouldn’t expect you to and I’ll come up [on stage] if you want me to’.

“Can you think how he’s turned up with his family to listen to somebody talking about you killing the police? Now, you put logic on that.”

The bizarre story emerged when I rang Mr Brown after I’d been told about the meeting.

I also wanted to ask him about the recent BBC hit drama series The Gold which retold the story of the Brink’s-Mat heist at Heathrow Airport in 1983.

“It was an absolute shambles, far too much dramatic licence and the real story was so much better,” said the ex-detective, whose job had been to follow the trail of the 6,800 gold bars to the US and the Caribbean.

He said he chatted to one of the show’s writers for a long time in a phone call but then heard no more.

“They invented people, changed a bit here and there and made it politically correct in so many ways. I’m just very sad that that is what people will believe.

“And I couldn’t work out who my character was supposed to be. I could have been one of the female cops.”

He also criticised the portrayal of Noye, now 78, as a likeable jack-the-lad character when the truth about the double killer with a volatile temper was quite different.