Rishi Sunak holds talks with Cabinet amid NI Brexit wrangling

Rishi Sunak‘s push for a new Brexit deal on Northern Ireland looks to be in chaos today with ministers threatening to quit if he makes too many concessions.

EU commission vice president Maros Sefcovic has said the sides ‘clearly can see the finishing line’ after intensive discussion about how to overhaul the protocol.

However, the prospect has been thrown into doubt as the PM desperately tries to convince the DUP and his own party that Northern Ireland’s place in the UK can be protected.

Mr Sunak told Cabinet this morning that negotiations are continuing, amid warnings that ministers could walk out. He spent several hours yesterday trying to reassure Eurosceptic MPs, who are insisting that the DUP must approve any new terms.

Boris Johnson is among the senior figures urging the premier to push ahead with legislation – currently stalled in the Lords – that would allow the UK unilaterally to  scrap key parts of the protocol. 

Meanwhile, Jacob Rees-Mogg has compared Mr Sunak’s approach to Theresa May’s, saying there is no chance of restoring powersharing at Stormont without the DUP. 

Hopes of a breakthrough this week appear to be fading, with no appetite for announcements close to the anniversary of the outbreak Ukraine war on Friday. 

Rishi Sunak is gathering his Cabinet this morning (pictured, Suella Braverman arriving) amid warnings that ministers could walk out if too many concessions are made over Northern Ireland Brexit rules

Boris Johnson (right) is among the senior figures urging Mr Sunak (left) to push ahead with legislation – currently stalled in the Lords – that would allow the UK unilaterally to scrap key parts of the protocol

Downing Street has been dodging on whether MPs will get a vote on any final deal.

No10 said ‘long-lasting challenges’ under the Northern Ireland Protocol still need to be addressed as ‘progress’ was made in talks with the EU.

The spokesman said there was no discussion about the future of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill and that Mr Sunak was not disappointed at being unable to present the meeting with a finished deal.

‘Negotiations have progressed and that is to be welcomed, but there still remain a number of unresolved issues. And as is the nature of these negotiations it is often some of the more long lasting challenges that need to be addressed as you get to this point and that’s not unusual,’ the spokesman said.

Asked why Mr Sunak had not been updating members of the DUP and ERG about the negotiations earlier, the spokesman said: ‘I wouldn’t agree with the premise of the question, we have been speaking to relevant parties at the appropriate times throughout this process.

‘Engagement will continue as we continue to negotiate, emphasising there are still intensive negotiations ongoing. There is no finished deal.’

Sent out to tour broadcast studios this morning, health minister Maria Caulfield urged colleagues to give Mr Sunak time and space.

She told Times Radio: ‘I think we need to support the Prime Minister.

‘There isn’t a deal done yet so all these rumours about ministers or MPs not being happy, I haven’t seen the details, we have to give the Prime Minister that time and space to get these negotiations done.

‘We need to give him the time and space to thrash out the final elements of any final deal.’

Home Secretary Suella Braverman risked raising the temperature last night by described the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill as ‘one of the biggest tools that we have in solving the problem on the Irish Sea’.

However, Ms Braverman, a longstanding Eurosceptic, argued that Mr Sunak is right to be ‘committed to finding a pragmatic solution to resolve these issues’.

Ms Caulfield said: ‘I think what Suella has actually said is she welcomes the Prime Minister’s negotiations on this both with the EU and with politicians in Northern Ireland to try and get this resolved.

‘Absolutely the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill was put in place as a mechanism to fall back on and that’s still going through Parliament at the moment.’

One minister told The Times: ‘The naivety is astonishing. The strategy hasn’t worked. People won’t allow something that doesn’t ensure sovereignty.

‘Ministers will resign. I couldn’t look myself in the eye and vote through something I thought would undermine sovereignty in Northern Ireland.’

Any deal on the protocol would be judged on whether it can secure the return of powersharing at the Stormont Assembly, after the DUP walked out in protest over post-Brexit arrangements last February.

Mr Rees-Mogg compared Mr Sunak’s approach to that followed by his doomed predecessor Theresa May.

On his ConservativeHome podcast, the former Cabinet minister said: ‘There seems to me to be no point in agreeing a deal that does not restore power-sharing.

‘That must be the objective. If it doesn’t achieve that objective, I don’t understand why the Government is spending political capital on something that won’t ultimately succeed.’

Mr Rees-Mogg said it is ‘quite surprising, because this is very similar to what happened with Theresa May’.

‘So a story would appear in The Times and Downing Street would say ”no, this isn’t quite right, it isn’t at all right”.

‘And then a week or two would go by and it would turn out to be completely right and they would hope that people would just conveniently fall in behind the announced policy.

‘And life doesn’t work like that. It’s important to get support for it first before you finalise the details and that doesn’t seem to have been done here.’

Yesterday Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and the EU’s Maros Sefcovic agreed to hold a face-to-face meeting in the coming days after a ‘productive’ video discussion.

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris was at Cabinet today 

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan in Downing Street this morning

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly (left) and Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (right)

Michael Gove in Whitehall this morning as the Cabinet gathered

Sources in Brussels welcomed the move to schedule in-person talks as a positive step, but said a location had not been set.

The European Research Group (ERG), a band of Eurosceptic Conservative MPs, are expected to meet for talks later.

Keir Starmer has offered Labour support to secure the approval of any new agreement in the event of any Tory rebellion – but that would be hugely toxic politically for Mr Sunak.

It comes as former Northern Ireland secretary Brandon Lewis threw his weight behind calls to reform some of the post-Good Friday Agreement architecture in Northern Ireland, arguing that it was failing to reflect the changed electoral landscape in the region.

‘The growth in the vote for the Alliance Party underlines the feeling that many more people now want to vote on issues, not on sectarian lines,’ Mr Lewis wrote in the Telegraph newspaper.

‘That should be embraced as the greatest success of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement. But if the agreement does not evolve further, under current rules, if Alliance and its vote share continues to grow, it will never have the right to nominate the First or Deputy First Minister.

‘Democracy cannot succeed when it is set in tram lines that can never cross.’