Northern Ireland’s biggest unionist party will vote against Rishi Sunak’s Brexit deal on Wednesday, in a blow to the 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, called the Windsor framework.
Wednesday’s vote in the House of Commons will be on a mechanism in the framework dubbed the Stormont brake, which is designed to allay unionist concerns over the introduction of new EU legislation in the region.
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 have “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 vote on Wednesday will focus on a form of secondary UK legislation known as a statutory instrument to implement the Stormont brake, and Donaldson said in a statement: “In the context of our ongoing concerns and the need to see further progress secured whilst continuing to seek clarification, change and reworking, [the party officers agreed] that our members of parliament would vote against the draft statutory instrument on Wednesday.”
The news came as a disappointment to Downing Street, which has been trying to persuade the DUP to back Sunak’s Brexit deal and end its 10 month long 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.”
Sunak is expected to win the Commons vote comfortably on his Brexit deal, despite DUP opposition, because Sir Keir Starmer, Labour leader, has said his party will endorse the agreement.
Senior Conservatives said the “overwhelming majority” of the parliamentary party will also vote for the Windsor framework, although the pro-Brexit European Research Group of Tory MPs is still deciding what to do.
One senior ERG member 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.”
A “star chamber” of ERG lawyers has been poring over the Windsor framework, signed last month by Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen, European Commission president, and will deliver their verdict on Tuesday.
One ERG member said the lawyers were expected to report that the Stormont brake — intended to give the Northern Ireland assembly a veto over EU laws in serious cases — is defective.
The DUP has appointed its own panel to canvass unionist views and give its verdict on the Windsor framework at the end of the month.
Donaldson has said it is important to get Sunak’s Brexit 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.
