Sunak warns that he will not sign a protocol for Northern Ireland if he sees that “it does not solve all the problems”

The Prime Minister insists that the current plan intrudes on Northern Irish sovereignty

26 Feb. () –

The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Rishi Sunak, has warned that he will not sign an agreement with the European Union to eliminate the “serious obstacles to trade” in Northern Ireland if he perceives that it does not solve the problems generated, in his opinion, by the agreement Brexit original.

“My job is to seize this opportunity, face difficult decisions and give everything I have,” Sunak said in an opinion piece published this Sunday in the ‘Telegraph’.

“I can promise this: I will not accept any agreement that does not solve the problems and deliver for Northern Ireland and our precious Union,” he added.

The piece appears on a weekend in which the prime minister is holding talks with cabinet ministers, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland, to resolve the point dead over the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol governing the region’s post-Brexit trade.

Sunak, in the article, raises these “problems” around three fundamental questions that revolve around the problems of exchange of goods and services and, above all, questions of sovereignty.

“We must ensure that trade can once again flow freely within our UK internal market (…). The second problem: it is necessary to respect the position of Northern Ireland in the Union (…) and, third and most serious: the current Protocol allows the European Union to impose new laws in Northern Ireland without its citizens and institutions having a say,” he said.

With these words, Sunak tries to appease critics from unionists and conservative supporters of Brexit, who fear that the new agreement will maintain EU law and the role of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Northern Ireland, something that threatens the position Northern Irish in the UK.

“I am determined to do whatever it takes to put this right. Resolving this issue is central to everything I believe in as a Conservative, as a Brexiteer and as a Unionist. We must make Brexit work for the whole of Britain,” he added.