Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party will vote against Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal on Wednesday in a blow to the UK prime minister and the chances of a swift restoration of the region’s power-sharing government.
The Democratic Unionist party’s decision-making body — its 12 officers — met on Monday and unanimously agreed to oppose a key element of Sunak’s agreement with the EU, the Windsor framework.
Sunak is also braced for a rebellion by Eurosceptic Tory MPs, who have been working closely with the DUP and will meet on Tuesday to discuss a report by a “star chamber” of lawyers who have been poring over the deal.
“Some MPs may be led by the DUP’s decision,” said one senior Conservative official. The lawyers, working for the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory MPs, are expected to conclude that Sunak’s deal is deficient.
The opposition of the DUP and Tory Eurosceptics will be a setback for the prime minister, but he is expected to easily win the House of Commons vote on his deal on Wednesday.
This is because the vast majority of Conservative MPs are due to vote for the deal, while Labour has also said it would back it.
One senior member of the European Research Group said: “The group will split. Maybe a dozen could vote against, but it will be a futile protest. It’s time to bank the gains we have made.”
The Commons vote will be on a mechanism in the Windsor framework dubbed the Stormont brake, which is designed to allay the concerns of unionist politicians over the introduction of new EU legislation in Northern Ireland.
Under the Northern Ireland protocol in Boris Johnson’s 2019 Brexit deal with the EU, the region remains in the bloc’s single market for goods and abides by relevant rules.
The Stormont brake gives Northern Ireland’s assembly at Stormont the right to object to new or updated EU rules, and in turn provides Britain with the opportunity not to implement the measures.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP leader, said it was “vital” that Stormont legislators had “democratic mechanisms that are effective in law” to decide if new or amended laws are implemented.
“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.
Unionist politicians object to how the protocol treats Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK, which left the EU single market and customs union in January 2021.
The DUP resents being “bounced” into the Commons vote while its own panel canvasses unionist views and considers the Windsor framework.
Donaldson said the party was looking for “clarification, change and reworking” of the text.
The news came as a disappointment to Downing Street, which has been trying to persuade the DUP to back Sunak’s deal and end its 10-month boycott of the Stormont executive over its objections to the protocol.
One senior UK government figure said: “Their voters don’t like the deal at all — so they are in a bind. The question is whether they can complain about it and say they want to improve it, but still go back into Stormont.”
Donaldson has said it is important to get Sunak’s deal right despite the looming 25th anniversary on April 10 of the Good Friday Agreement, which ended Northern Ireland’s three decades of conflict and established power-sharing.
US president Joe Biden has confirmed he will visit Belfast to mark the occasion, but no date for his visit has yet been set.
The Windsor framework eases some of the trade frictions resulting from the protocol, which sought to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The framework creates a green lane for goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, involving minimal checks. There is also a red lane for detailed checks on goods destined for the Irish Republic.
