London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is aware of India’s security concerns following violent clashes at its mission in London and a security review is underway, Downing Street said on Thursday.
The security review was announced by UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly in a statement last week following windows being smashed and the tricolour being attacked by pro-Khalistan flag-waving protesters at India House.
The UK Foreign Office has since been leading on this review of the security at the diplomatic mission, along with the Metropolitan Police.
“Discussions are being led by the Foreign Office with our police in the UK and our Indian counterparts. The Prime Minister hasn’t been involved directly but he is aware of them [discussions],” Prime Minister Sunak’s spokesperson told PTI at a Downing Street briefing.
Asked if the issue is likely to impact the ongoing India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations, which are now in their eighth round of talks, the spokesperson added: “The two issues are unconnected and the trade talks with India continue. Both sides want to see an enhanced relationship between our two countries.
“On security, we expressed our concerns about the scenes we saw outside the High Commission and a review is underway.”
It came as the latest set of protests outside India House in London are expected over three days until Saturday, with a demonstration also planned outside the Indian Consulate in Birmingham on Sunday.
There has been a very visible Met Police presence around the Indian High Commission in London since the violent disorder on March 19, with protesters now confined behind barricades across the street from the mission premises.
During a planned demonstration there last Wednesday, protesters hurled coloured flares and water bottles towards the mission. They have since taken to social media to allege that the objects were hurled by the Indian mission instead, allegations which have been countered by India House.
India had registered a strong protest with the UK government and the issue was also raised in the House of Commons.
It followed UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly’s statement to condemn the “unacceptable” acts of violence and an assurance to conduct a security review.
“We will always take the security of the High Commission, and all foreign missions in the UK, extremely seriously, and prevent and robustly respond to incidents such as this,” said Cleverly.
Meanwhile, government ministers have also been holding talks with Indian High Commissioner to the UK Vikram Doraiswami to reiterate plans to review the security measures at India House.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak marked 100 days in office last month. The International Monetary Fund and UK economists predicted that the UK economy would continue to shrink, despite the PM’s best efforts to stabilize the country’s markets.
The same report predicted that China and India’s economies would account for more than half of GDP growth and stated that the UK would be the only country with an economy in recession this year. Experts expect that there will be a 0.06% overall reduction in the UK economy this year, and various cabinet members are citing several reasons for the shrinkage.
In February, their independent Office Of Budget Responsibility warned that the recession would last at least through 2023. The UK’s economic situation is deteriorating over many factors, including the increased price of heating, gas, and oil due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the fallout from Brexit, and the fact that the country’s economy never quite recovered after Covid-19 shutdowns.
Additionally, annual inflation hit 11.1% in October and stayed at 10.5% in December, the highest in four decades. It is important to note that the overall GDP increased by 4% in 2022. However, the UK remains the only G-7 country not to recover its output after the pandemic fully.
While Sunak blames outside forces like the Russian invasion, other experts point the finger at Brexit, which has caused much lower trade exports with the rest of Europe. The British PM focuses on expanding trade with other countries, including India. Over the last year, the UK and India have had six rounds of talking over trade and investment agreements that would boost trade by billions of dollars in both countries. While this much-needed trade agreement will help boost the economy overall, the UK has a long way to go before the government can quell its economic woes.
As with any recession, unemployment is up, and so is inflation, further infuriating labourers, who have already organized dozens of strikes – which conservatives in the government blame for some of the economic stagnation. According to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), the UK recorded the highest number of working days lost in over 30 years in 2022. Transportation, teaching, and healthcare industries have been the most affected. With inflation continuing to rise, workers demand better conditions and higher pay. While some contracts have been negotiated, the strikes will continue as the Prime Minister and this government refuse to budge on pay raises in the public sector. Earlier in February, over half a million teachers, train drivers, and other civil servants organized a walkout, the largest coordinated labour strike in a decade.
As the labour unions persist, members of Sunak’s own party immediately proposed a round of tax cuts, which they promise will stimulate the economy, especially job growth. Sunak has so far refused either party, saying that raising pay for workers will cause inflation to rise and that the “best tax cut right now is a cut in inflation.”
As the workers who have jobs walk out due to economic inequality, employment is falling across the private and public sectors, which economists predict will continue into 2023. This creates its own concerns. As residents fail to believe in the country’s economy, the black market economy always sees a boost. Currently, the UK is already dealing with the black gambling market. Numerous offshore casino sites that aren’t under UK regulations and therefore, not a part of GamStop, and are currently not being taxed. Increasing illegal goods/services and off-the-books jobs is another worry for lawmakers as small businesses try to avoid taxation. According to a report published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), these black market businesses cost the UK over 150 billion euros every day, says a report published by the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). Of course, this is a problem all over the EU, where over 30 million people work or run businesses without paying taxes.
The rising cost of imports, like food and energy, has particularly alarmed families across the UK. In combination with rising inflation, it caused a curb on spending, leaving the country in a loop where they can’t quite stimulate new growth. With nothing in the works to address those families, Sunak’s government has instead focused on new trade with Ireland and India in recent weeks. A dispute over trade routes in Northern Ireland has added to rising costs and completely shuttered Belfast’s government, which Sunak seeks to alleviate. The PM says some progress has been made, but any concessions will likely anger his own party.
With two years left until reelection season and crushing economic predictions, Rishi Sunak will have a long fight ahead of him if he stands a chance of keeping his position. While Sunak is downplaying the role of Brexit, which he has been a long-time supporter of, many across the country are now finding that the economic fallout deeply affects every corner of the economy. With decreased foreign investment after the event, European and American companies have continued to resist investment opportunities in the UK.
Instability in the economy is the number one reason many companies pulled their investments. Then, last year, Liz Truss produced several (now abandoned) unpopular plans to cut taxes, which angered critics and caused further divestment. As she left her very short-term, most investors pulled out again, causing the economy to plummet. Though this up-and-down has remained chiefly quiet as Sunak’s continued leadership is once again signalling that it may be safe for foreign companies to reinvest, these new economic reports may further deter this.
In current opinion polls, the Conservative party is trailing the Labour Party by about 20 points, and some election experts are already predicting Sunak’s defeat. With local elections looming in May and polls showing a disgruntled populace that wants a change in leadership, the UK’s economy may not recover as quickly as the country’s leadership hopes.
London: A group of international students, including many from India, have delivered a petition to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak urging him to act against the “unjust” revocation of their visas following an English test scandal.
The issue dates back to 2014 when a BBC Panorama’ investigation showed some cheating had occurred at two of the UK’s testing centres for a compulsory language test required for visas.
The UK government responded by a widespread crackdown on such centres, which had the fallout of the revocation of tens of thousands of students’ visas linked with those centres.
The Migrant Voice voluntary group has been supporting the students impacted and coordinated the latest petition delivered at 10 Downing Street on Monday.
“This is one of the biggest scandals in contemporary British history. The initial government reaction was unjust and has been allowed to drag on for years,” said Nazek Ramadan, director of Migrant Voice.
“It could have been resolved by a simple solution, such as allowing the tests to be retaken. The students came here to get a world-class education and best student experience in the world, but instead their lives have been wrecked. It is time for the government to step in and end this nightmare. All it takes to bring this to an end is leadership,” she said.
With no right to stay, work or in a few cases to appeal, most of the accused students returned home.
Those who stayed to clear their names have struggled with homelessness, huge legal fees, stress-induced illnesses and have missed family weddings, births and deaths, the petition appeals.
Parliamentary and watchdog reports over the years have highlighted some flaws in the Home Office evidence used in the case in the past. Although some students won their legal challenges, scores of other students many of them Indian are still in limbo.
Migrant Voice is now underlining the importance of Sunak “addressing the injustice at a time when numbers of students and migrant workers form part of UK-India trade negotiations”.
The group has been running the #MyFutureBack campaign for the affected students for over nine years now and urging the UK government to allow these students the chance to clear their names of alleged cheating.
Sarbjeet is a 46-year-old Indian student who has been separated from her children for 13 years, as she feels she cannot return home to India with the allegations hanging over her.
Sanjoy, another Indian student impacted, is being sued by the company that sponsored him and has also been denied the ability to go to the US because his visa withdrawal prevents him from resuming his studies in another country.
The BBC programme had revealed cheating on a compulsory language test, known as the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC), at two London test centres by some international students.
The UK government reacted by placing Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that ran 96 TOEIC test centres, under criminal investigation, while also asking the company to investigate the allegation.
As a result of the investigation by ETS, the UK Home Office suddenly terminated the visas of over 34,000 overseas students, making their presence in the UK illegal overnight.
A further 22,000 were told that their test results were “questionable”. More than 2,400 students have been deported and thousands left voluntarily. The remaining, estimated in hundreds, have been campaigning to clear their name over the years.
LONDON — “Better than the last guy” might not be quite the tagline every world leader hopes for. It could yet be Rishi Sunak’s winning formula.
The British prime minister, swept into office late last year by wave after wave of Tory psychodrama, has cleared several major hurdles in the space of the past month. His success has even sparked a shocking rumor in Westminster that — whisper it — he might actually be quite good at his job.
That was the murmur among hopeful Conservative MPs ahead of this week’s U.K. budget, anyway — many of them buoyed by the PM’s recent moves on two long-running sources of angst in Westminster.
First came an apparent resolution to the intractable problem of post-Brexit trade arrangements in Northern Ireland. Sunak’s so-called Windsor Framework deal with Brussels landed to near-universal acclaim.
A week later, Sunak unveiled hard-hitting legislation to clamp down on illegal migration to the U.K., coupled with an expensive deal with France to increase patrols across the English Channel. Tory MPs were delighted. The Illegal Migration Bill sailed through parliament Monday night without a single vote of rebellion.
Then came Wednesday’s annual budget announcement, with Sunak hoping to complete an improbable hat trick.
It started well, with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt making the big reveal that the U.K. is no longer expected to enter recession this year, as had been widely predicted.
But a series of jaw-droppers in the budget small print show the scale of the challenge ahead.
The U.K.’s overall tax take remains sky-high by historic standards — an ominous bone of contention for skeptical Tory MPs and right-wing newspapers alike. Meanwhile, millions of Britons’ living standards continue to fall, thanks to high fuel bills and raging inflation. U.K. growth forecasts remain sluggish for years to come.
“He’s chalking up some wins,” observed one former party adviser grimly, “because he’s going to need them.”
‘Workmanlike’
Among all but the bitterest of Sunak’s Tory opponents, there is a palpable sense of relief about the way he has approached his premiership so far.
“It doesn’t mean everything will suddenly turn to gold,” said Conservative MP Richard Graham, a longtime Sunak-backer. “But like Ben Stokes and England’s cricket team, his quiet self-confidence may change what the same team believes is possible.”
Nicky Morgan, a Conservative peer and former Treasury minister, praised a “workmanlike” budget that would reassure voters and the party there was a “firm hand on the tiller” after the “turmoil” of the preceding year with two prime ministers stepping down, Boris Johnson and then Liz Truss.
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt meets children during a visit to Busy Bees Battersea Nursery in south London after delivering his Budget earlier in the day | Stefan Rousseau/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
Most of Wednesday’s biggest announcements, including an extra £4 billion for childcare and a decision to lift the cap on pensions allowances, were either trailed or leaked in advance. This may have made for a predictable budget speech, but as Morgan put it: “I think that’s probably what businesses and the public need at the moment.”
An ex-minister who did not originally support Sunak for leader said that the general tone of the budget, together with the Northern Ireland deal and small boats legislation, meant that “increasingly it’s hard for hostile voices to pin real failure on Rishi.”
Others, however, fear key announcements could yet unravel. An expensive change to pension taxes was instantly savaged by critics as a “giveaway for the 1 percent.” Headline-grabbing back-to-work programs and an expansion of free childcare will take years to kick in.
Hiking corporation tax was the “biggest mistake of the budget,” Truss ally and former Cabinet minister Jacob Rees-Mogg complained.
Doing the hard yards
Observers note that in the wake of the rolling chaos under Truss and Johnson, the bar for a successful government has been lowered.
“[Sunak] could stand at the podium and soil himself, and he’d be doing a better job than his predecessors,” noted one business group lobbyist on Wednesday evening, having watched budget day unfold.
But even Sunak’s fiercest critics praise his work rate and attention to detail, in sharp contrast to Johnson. Most accept — grudgingly — he has set up an effective Downing Street operation.
Having returned from his Paris summit last Friday evening, the PM kicked off budget week with a whirlwind trip to the west coast of California to launch a defense pact with the U.S. and Australia, arranging a bank bailout along the way. He landed back in the U.K. less than 24 hours before Hunt unveiled the annual spending plan.
“It turns out working like an absolute maniac and being forensic is quite useful,” one of his ministers said.
Another Tory MP added: “He’s got the brainpower and will do the hours. He’s not good at barnstorming politics or old school dividing lines — but he is good for the politics we have right now.”
There has also been a clear effort to run a tighter ship behind the scenes at No. 10. One veteran of Johnson’s Downing Street said the atmosphere seemed “calm” in comparison.
There are tentative signs that voters are starting to notice.
James Johnson, who ran a recent poll by JL Partners which showed Sunak’s personal ratings are on the up, said the PM’s growing reputation as a “fixer” seems to be behind his recent rally, and that the biggest increase on his polling scorecard was on his ability to “get things done.”
It remains to be seen if this will shift the dial on the Tory Party’s own disastrous ratings, however, which languish some 25 points behind the opposition Labour Party. “Voters have clearly lost trust in the Tories,” Johnson said. “But if government can deliver … I would expect it to feed through.”
Anthony Browne, a Tory MP elected in 2019, expressed hope that Sunak had begun “changing the narrative” which in turn “could restore our right to be heard.”
Trouble ahead?
Sunak will be well aware that plenty of recent budgets — not least Truss’ spectacular failure last September — have unraveled in the 72 hours after being announced.
And while expanding free childcare, incentivizing business investment and ending the lifetime pensions allowance were all crowd-pleasers for his own MPs, they were not enough to conceal worrying subheadings.
The tax take is predicted to reach a post-war high of 37.7 percent in the next five years, while disposable incomes are hit by fiscal drag pulling 3.2 million people into higher tax bands. Right-wing Tories are not impressed.
Ranil Jayawardena, founder of the Conservative Growth Group of backbench MPs, described it in a statement as “an effective income tax rise,” which will be “a concern to many.”
Net migration is set to rise to 245,000 a year by 2026-27, and will add more people to the labor force than all the measures intended to make it a “back to work” budget, according to the Whitehall’s fiscal watchdog, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR). The message is not one Conservative MPs want to hear.
Already singled out by Labour’s Keir Starmer as a “huge giveaway to the wealthiest,” scrapping the lifetime allowance on pensions will cost £835 million a year by 2027-28 while benefiting less than 4 percent of workers. Conservative MPs reply that NHS doctors are one of the main groups to benefit.
Perhaps most worrying of all, the government’s own budget expects living standards to fall by 6 percent this year and next — less than the 7 percent fall predicted in November but still the largest two-year fall since records began in the 1950s.
There are some problems that can’t be solved by pulling an all-nighter. Ironically for Sunak, whose career was made in the Treasury, his may prove to be the state of the U.K. economy.
Rosa Prince, Stefan Boscia and Dan Bloom contributed reporting.
[ad_2]
#Rishi #Sunak #picks #budget #minefield
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
PARIS — Vegetarian sushi and rugby brought the leaders of Britain and France together after years of Brexit rows.
U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday held the two countries’ first bilateral summit in five years, amid warm words and wishes for closer post-Brexit cooperation.
“This is an exceptional summit, a moment of reunion and reconnection, that illustrates that we want to better speak to each other,” Macron told a joint press conference afterward. “We have the will to work together in a Europe that has new responsibilities.”
Most notably from London’s perspective, the pair agreed a new multi-annual financial framework to jointly tackle the arrival of undocumented migrants on small boats through the English Channel — in part funding a new detention center in France.
“The U.K. and France share a special bond and a special responsibility,” Sunak said. “When the security of our Continent is threatened, we will always be at the forefront of its defense.”
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission, putting an end to a long U.K.-EU row over post-Brexit trade rules in Northern Ireland, and stressing it marks a “new beginning of working more closely with the EU.”
“I feel very fortunate to be serving alongside you and incredibly excited about the future we can build together. Merci mon ami,” Sunak said.
It has been many years since the leaders of Britain and France were so publicly at ease with each other.
Sunak and Macron bonded over rugby, ahead of Saturday’s match between England and France, and exchanged T-shirts signed by their respective teams.
Later, they met alone at the Élysée Palace for more than an hour, only being joined by their chiefs of staff at the very end of the meeting, described as “warm and productive” by Sunak’s official spokesman. The pair, who spoke English, had planned to hold a shorter one-to-one session, but they decided to extend it, the spokesman said.
They later met with their respective ministers for a lunch comprising vegetarian sushi, turbot, artichokes and praline tart.
Macron congratulated Sunak for agreeing the Windsor Framework with the European Commission | Christophe Archambault/AFP via Getty Images
Speaking on the Eurostar en route to Paris, Sunak told reporters this was the beginning of a “new chapter” in the Franco-British relationship.
“It’s been great to get to know Emmanuel over the last two months. There’s a shared desire to strengthen the relationship,” he said. “I really believe that the range of things that we can do together is quite significant.”
In a show of goodwill from the French, who pushed energetically for a hard line during Brexit talks, Macron said he wanted to “fix the consequences of Brexit” and opened the door to closer cooperation with the Brits in the future.
“It’s my wish and it’s in our interests to have closest possible alliance. It will depend on our commitment and willingness but I am sure we will do it,” he said alongside Sunak.
Tackling small boats
Under the terms of the new migration deal, Britain will pay €141 million to France in 2023-24, €191 million in 2024-25 and €209 million in 2025-26.
This money will come in installments and go toward funding a new detention center in France, a new Franco-British command centre, an extra 500 law enforcement officers on French beaches and better technology to patrol them, including more drones and surveillance aircraft.
The new detention center, located in the Dunkirk area, would be funded by the British and run by the French and help compensate for the lack of space in other detention centers in northern France, according to one of Macron’s aides.
According to U.K. and French officials, France is expected to contribute significantly more funding — up to five times the amount the British are contributing — toward the plan although the Elysée has refused to give exact figures.
A new, permanent French mobile policing unit will join the efforts to tackle small boats. This work will be overseen by a new zonal coordination center, where U.K. liaison officers will be permanently based working with French counterparts.
Sunak stressed U.K.-French cooperation on small boats since November has made a significant difference, and defended the decision to hand more British money to France to help patrol the French northern shores. Irregular migration, he stressed, is a “joint problem.”
Ukraine unity
Sunak and Macron also made a show of unity on the war in Ukraine, agreeing that their priority would be to continue to support the country in its war against Russian aggression.
The French president said the “ambition short-term is to help Ukraine to resist and to build counter-offensives.”
“The priority is military,” he said. “We want a lasting peace, when Ukraine wants it and in the conditions that it wants and our will is to put it in position to do so.”
The West’s top priority should remain helping Ukrainians achieve “a decisive battlefield advantage” that later allows Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to sit down at the negotiating table with Russian President Vladimir Putin from a stronger position, Sunak said en route to the summit.
“That should be everyone’s focus,” he added. “Of course, this will end as all conflicts do, at the negotiating table. But that’s a decision for Ukraine to make. And what we need to do is put them in the best possible place to have those talks at an appropriate moment that makes sense for them.”
The two leaders also announced they would start joint training operations of Ukrainian marines.
[ad_2]
#Sunak #Macron #hail #chapter #UKFrance #ties
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Tuesday said he is “over the moon” with the Brexit agreement inked with the European Union (EU) aimed at resolving long-standing trade issues in the region.
Sunak is currently touring Northern Ireland to sell the new “Windsor Framework” agreed between the UK and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Windsor on Monday, which replaces the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol which caused trade disputes and severely strained UK-EU relations.
Sunak later made a statement in the House of Commons to declare that the new deal delivers “free-flowing trade” for UK territory Northern Ireland with the rest of Britain by “removing any sense of the border in the Irish Sea” and creates a red lane system to resolve issues with bordering EU member-state Ireland.
“I’m really pleased in fact, I’m over the moon that yesterday we managed to have a decisive breakthrough with our negotiations with the EU,” Sunak told local business representatives gathered at the Coca-Cola factory in County Antrim in Northern Ireland as he took questions from them on the framework.
“It’s about stability in Northern Ireland. It’s about real people and real businesses. It’s about showing that our Union, which has lasted for centuries, can and will endure. And it’s about breaking down the barriers between us,” he said.
Sunak insisted that the new framework puts the people of Northern Ireland in charge with active democratic consent by adding a new “Stormont Brake”.
This indicates that the devolved Parliament at Stormont in Belfast, backed by the UK, can veto new EU goods laws not supported by all communities in Northern Ireland.
The agreement concluded months of intensive discussions between the UK and EU to address problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed by former British prime minister Boris Johnson, who was conspicuously absent from the Commons session on Monday, as the Opposition repeatedly criticised his handling of the issue.
In a swipe at Sunak’s former boss, Labour Party Leader Keir Starmer said, “The Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip [Boris Johnson] told the people of Northern Ireland that his protocol meant ‘no forms, no checks, no barriers of any kind’ on goods crossing the Irish Sea after Brexit.”
“That was nonsense. A point-blank refusal to engage with unionists in Northern Ireland in good faith, never mind taking their concerns seriously. And it inevitably contributed to the collapse of power-sharing in Northern Ireland,” Starmer said.
He urged Sunak to be “utterly unlike his predecessor” and not pretend the deal is something it is not.
Overall, Sunak’s statement in parliament was greeted with praise from his Conservative Party MPs and many in the opposition. The reaction of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which had withdrawn from the Northern Irish devolved government process over the Protocol, now remains crucial to the new Windsor Framework working in the long term. While the regional party said it is studying the deal’s fine print before giving its verdict, Sunak’s tour of the region is intended to build consensus on all sides.
“Parties will want to consider the agreement in detail, a process that will need time and care. And there are, of course, many voices and perspectives within Northern Ireland, and it is the job of the government to respect them all,” Sunak said in Parliament.
“As a Conservative, a Brexiteer, and a Unionist, I believe passionately with my head and my heart that it is the right way forward, right for Northern Ireland, and right for our United Kingdom,” he said.
London: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Monday unveiled a “decisive breakthrough” in achieving a new deal with the European Union (EU) to resolve the post-Brexit trade dispute related to Northern Ireland.
After weeks of intensive negotiations, Sunak was joined by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen for a final set of in-person talks in Windsor, south east England, after which the duo addressed the media to confirm a new “Windsor Framework”.
It replaces the previous Northern Ireland Protocol, agreed by Sunak’s former boss Boris Johnson to prevent a hard border between UK territory Northern Ireland and EU member-state Ireland but eventually proving unworkable and causing much tension between the UK and EU.
“I’m pleased to report that we have now made a decisive breakthrough. Together we have changed the original protocol and are today announcing the new Windsor framework,” Sunak told reporters.
“Today’s agreement delivers smooth-flowing trade within the whole United Kingdom, protects Northern Ireland’s place in our union and safeguards sovereignty for the people of Northern Ireland and [removes] any sense of a border in the Irish Sea,” he said.
Von der Leyen echoed Sunak’s optimism to say that the UK and EU can now open a new chapter in their post-Brexit relationship.
They detailed “big steps forward” to deliver trade flow with goods destined for Northern Ireland travelling through a new “green lane” with a separate “red lane” reserved for items expected to move on to the EU.
“We will end the situation where food made to UK rules could not be sent to and sold in Northern Ireland. This means that if food is available on supermarket shelves in Great Britain, then it will be available on supermarket in Northern Ireland,” said Sunak.
The legal text of the Northern Ireland Protocol has been amended to ensure critical VAT and excise changes for the whole of the UK can be made and the devolved Northern
Irish parliament in Stormont would have a say on the changes. “These negotiations have not always been easy, but I’d like to pay an enormous personal tribute to Ursula for her vision in recognising the possibility of a new way forward… Today’s agreement is about preserving that delicate balance and charting a new way forward for the people of Northern Ireland,” added Sunak.
The British Indian leader now faces the uphill task of getting Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) on board with the new Windsor Framework.
The DUP had been strongly opposed to the earlier protocol, which meant goods arriving from England, Scotland and Wales within the United Kingdom were checked when they arrived at Northern Irish ports. This was seen as undermining the region’s position within the rest of the UK, besides severely impacting trade.
The other group likely to make things difficult for Sunak in the House of Commons include the hard Brexiteers within the Conservative Party, including backbencher Johnson, who had warned against backing down over Northern Ireland Protocol Bill which would have given the UK Parliament a chance to unilaterally change parts of the protocol.
However, Sunak had indicated that a fresh negotiated agreement with the EU was preferable over the controversial Bill that would have put the UK on a legal collision course with its European neighbours.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, will meet this Monday with the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, to fulfill the final stretch of an agreement on the application of the Irish Protocol, which has blocked relations between the United Kingdom and the European Union after Brexit and has caused the collapse of home rule in Northern Ireland.
Von der Leyemn will arrive at the Prime Minister’s residence, at 10 Downing Street, “at lunchtime” and both will leave for Windsor Castle to sign it and appear at a press conference. The agreement is likely to be signed in the presence of King Carlos III. Later, Sunak will present a statement in the House of Commons, which will be followed by a debate.
The Ireland and Northern Ireland Protocol is part of the Withdrawal Agreement of the United Kingdom from the Union signed by the two parties on January 24, 2020. It contains the legislative procedures that prevent the creation of a border between the two Irelands, making it possible that Northern Ireland remains in the common market at the same time as it remains in the British internal market.
The document lists the regulations and directives that must apply to goods that are produced in Northern Ireland or arriving in Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, so that non-compliant goods do not enter the Republic of Ireland. community rules. It also establishes the supremacy of the Court of Justice of the EU to resolve disputes.
The then Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, celebrated the signing of the Protocol and assured, despite the contrary opinion of other politicians and experts, that it would not lead to the establishment of customs controls. The reality is that border requirements have become a source of complaints about the cost of the bureaucratic burden, leading to the temporary non-application of some controls.
For the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which was the majority in the province until the May 2022 elections, the Protocol weakens its position in the United Kingdom. And the obligation to apply without voice or vote the modifications of regulations and directives decided by the EU, and the role of the community court, are in his opinion a loss of sovereignty and a democratic deficit.
Seal
The DUP boycotts the autonomous institutions created in 1998 as an essential element of the peace agreement to protest the maintenance of the Protocol. The radical ‘brexiters’ deputies and Johnson himself demand that Sunak complete the processing of a bill from the former prime minister, which would give the British government the power to unilaterally annul the agreed obligations.
This context of British politics calls into question the viability of Sunak’s commitment, which seems determined to sign an agreement with Von der Leyen that does not modify the Protocol – Brussels’ persistent position – but would soften aspects of its application. The benefit would be the opening of negotiations on British participation in the Horizon scientific collaboration program, access to the financial market and other blocked issues.
The conservative leader, who took over as head of government in October – the third prime minister in four months – undertakes the biggest challenge of his tenure. Regarded as a meticulous and hard-working politician, he is portrayed by the Labor opposition as weak in the face of a scrambled parliamentary caucus and a party angry at him for his part in ousting Johnson.
He is now criticized for not having informed the unionists about the details of the negotiation until two weeks ago and for keeping secret the progress of his pacts with Brussels. He seems determined to “get Brexit done” and to challenge his critics. The polls say that Sunak, before sealing this inherited mess with his authority, is twenty points behind Labor in voting intentions.
LONDON — Rishi Sunak insisted Saturday he wants to “get the job done” on Brexit, promising he was “giving it everything we’ve got” to secure a deal with Brussels.
In an interview with the Sunday Times, the British prime minister said he was hopeful of a “positive outcome,” as he launched a weekend media blitz, burnishing his Brexiteer credentials, and reassuring potential critics his deal “should command very broad support, because it ensures the free flow of trade within the United Kingdom’s internal market, it secures Northern Ireland’s place in our Union and it ensures sovereignty.”
Both sides continue to insist a deal to resolve the ongoing tension over Britain’s post-Brexit trading arrangements, which see Northern Ireland continue to follow some EU laws to get round the need for checks at the U.K.’s border with the Republic of Ireland, is not yet done, but could come within days if negotiators are able to close the remaining gaps.
Sunak, who himself backed Britain’s departure from the European Union in 2016, has been trying to win support from the Democratic Unionist Party and the hardline Brexit-supporting European Research Group in Westminster.
“I’m a Conservative, I’m a Brexiteer. And I’m a Unionist,” Sunak told the Sunday Times. “There’s unfinished business on Brexit and I want to get the job done,” he added.
Separately, in a piece for the Sun on Sunday, Sunak wrote: “There’s still more work to do but we have made promising progress recently and I’m determined to do right by the people of Northern Ireland and deliver for them.”
LONDON — Boris Johnson may have coined the phrase, but Rishi Sunak hopes he’s the man who can finally claim to have “got Brexit done.”
The British prime minister will on Monday host European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in what’s being sold by No. 10 Downing Street as the pair’s “final talks” on resolving the long-running row over post-Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.
Downing Street has drawn up a carefully choreographed sequence of events following the meeting. Sunak will brief his Cabinet following the late lunchtime face-to-face with the European Commission chief.
He then hopes to hold a joint press conference with von der Leyen to announce any deal before heading to the House of Commons late on Monday to begin his trickiest task yet — selling that deal to Brexiteer MPs on his own Conservative benches, many of whom will be closely watching the verdict of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
It’s likely to mark a defining moment in Sunak’s young premiership, which only began in October when he took over a Conservative Party still riven with divisions following the departures of Johnson and Liz Truss in quick succession. If successful, he will hope to draw a line under the rancorous follow-up to Britain’s 2020 departure from the bloc, and herald an era of closer cooperation with Brussels.
But even as Downing Street was drawing up plans for Monday’s grand unveiling, members of Sunak’s own party were voicing skepticism that the prime minister will have done enough to win their backing. And without DUP support, Northern Ireland’s moribund power-sharing assembly could remain collapsed.
Testing times
Since taking office, Sunak has put securing a deal with Brussels on the so-called Northern Ireland protocol near the top of his to-do list.
The post-Brexit arrangement has been a long-running source of tension between the U.K. and the EU, and the two sides have been locked in months of talks to try to ease the operation of the protocol while addressing the concerns of both the DUP and traders hit by extra bureaucracy.
Under the protocol, the EU requires checks on trade from Great Britain to Northern Ireland in order to preserve the integrity of its single market while avoiding such checks taking place at the sensitive land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
But the DUP sees the protocol as separating Northern Ireland from the rest of the U.K. and is boycotting the region’s power-sharing government until changes are made.
In a statement Sunday night, Downing Street said Sunak wanted “to ensure any deal fixes the practical problems on the ground, ensures trade flows freely within the whole of the U.K., safeguards Northern Ireland’s place in our Union and returns sovereignty to the people of Northern Ireland.”
The Belfast to Dublin motorway crosses the border line between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland | Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
Downing Street has kept the detail of any deal a closely-guarded secret. In an interview on Sky News Sunday, Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab talked up the prospect of “more of an intelligence-based approach” to goods checks, and a move away from individual checks at Northern Irish ports. The U.K. and EU have already talked up more access for Brussels to British goods data.
One of the biggest flashpoints for Brexiteer MPs and the DUP will be the status of the Court of Justice of the European Union in governing disputes under the protocol. They see the continued presence of the EU’s top court in the arrangement as a challenge to British sovereignty.
On Sunday, Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group of Conservative Euroskeptics, set a high bar for his support, warning any deal must see Northern Ireland treated on the “same basis” as the rest of Great Britain. He warned that even a reduced role for the CJEU over Northern Ireland was not “good enough.”
Raab told Sky that scaling back some of the regulatory checks and paperwork “would in itself involve a significant, substantial scaling back of the role of the ECJ,” and he talked up the idea of a “proper democratic check coming out of the institutions in Stormont,” the home of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing assembly.
Minefield
One potential source of Brexit trouble on Sunak’s benches is Johnson himself, who has already been warning the prime minister not to drop the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill aimed at allowing U.K. ministers to unilaterally sideline the arrangement.
The Sunday Times reported that Johnson, while being lobbied to support a deal to cement relations with U.S. President Joe Biden, responded with the colorful retort: “F*** the Americans!” The same paper cited a “source close to” Johnson who dismissed it as “a jocular conversation in the [House of Commons] chamber that someone evidently misunderstood.”
As another defining Brexit week begins, Sunak appears willing to plow ahead, even without the support of the most hardline Brexiteers in his party. Raab insisted on Sunday MPs would “have the opportunity to express themselves on the deal,” but did not elaborate on whether there will be a House of Commons vote on the arrangement.
Former Chancellor George Osborne, one of the key figures in the campaign to remain in the European Union, urged Sunak to press on and “call the bluff” of the DUP, Johnson and the ERG — or his premiership would be “severely weakened.”
“Having got to this point in the minefield, he has to proceed,” Osborne told the Andrew Neil Show.
[ad_2]
#Rishi #Sunak #final #push #Brexit
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
