Inside Politics: NI talks
Prime minister Boris Johnson to hold Brexit protocol talks in Northern Ireland and urge DUP to get back to work, writes Matt Mathers
Boris Johnson is in Northern Ireland for talks about the Brexit protocol. Elsewhere, Priti Patel, the home secretary, is coming under fire after repeatedly overriding Home Office legal advice on immigration and asylum cases, adding to record costs for the taxpayer.
Inside the bubble
Commons actions gets underway at 2.30pm. with levelling up questions, followed by any UQs or statements. The main business will be more debate on the Queen’s Speech. Today’s topic is “making Britain the best place to grow up and grow old.” Tory MP Sarah Atherton has an adjournment debate on Wrexham’s bid for the UK city of culture.
Daily Briefing
Northern Ireland talks
Boris Johnson is in Northern Ireland today, where he will hold emergency talks on the Brexit protocol and urge the Democratic Unionist Party to join the other main parties in getting back to the assembly to restore power-sharing. The prime minister will have meetings with leaders in Hillsborough Castle before visiting Thales, a weapons manufacturer, in Belfast.
What is the state of play ahead of the discussions? At the recent assembly elections in NI, the DUP ran on a platform to have the post-Brexit trading arrangements scrapped. But it lost, and a sizable majority of newly elected MLAs (53 out of 90) represent parties who support the protocol. The DUP says it will not return to government until Downing Street takes meaningful action on the protocol.
The UK and the EU, who agreed the deal, remain at loggerheads over how to solve the impasse. Towards the end of last week, however - and continuing into the weekend - No 10 dialled down its rhetoric on the protocol and has taken a more conciliatory approach towards the EU. “The prime minister does not want a war with the EU,” a senior ally of his told The Sunday Times. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary and David Canzini, No 10 chief of staff, meanwhile, were briefed against in the same piece for their aggressive approach to what is an incredibly delicate and finely balanced issue.
There was a similarly conciliatory tone from the EU side. Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, writing in Saturday’s Telegraph, accepted that the protocol needs reforming because it is “not working as smoothly or as easily as it could do” and that a “large majority are unhappy about some aspects of it”. He did, however, warn against unilateral action by the UK, which he said could destabilise peace and security in NI.
Ahead of his visit to NI today, the PM has written in the Belfast Telegraph where he appeared to rule out scrapping the protocol entirely, while reiterating his threat to take unilateral action to override some parts of it. The threats and counter-threats (the EU said unilateral action would start a trade war) will likely continue this week but some of the rhetoric from both sides over the weekend suggests that there is a landing zone where compromise on checks on goods crossing into NI from the rest of the UK can be reached. It remains to be seen, meanwhile, whether anything Johnson has to say today will be enough to get Jeffrey Donaldson’s party back to work.
Patel problems
Priti Patel has repeatedly overridden Home Office legal advice on immigration and asylum cases, adding to record costs for the taxpayer, The Independent can reveal.
The department spent £35.2m on legal bills for lost cases and paid out a further £9.3m to people wrongly held in immigration detention in 2020-21. The figures stand at their highest level since the Conservatives came to power, having rocketed from £17.1m and £2.2m respectively in five years.
Home Office sources told The Independent that Ms Patel and other Home Office ministers had rejected legal advice in individual cases on numerous occasions.
On the record
“I don’t think there is going to be a trade war. There has been a lot of talk, a lot of threats about what the EU will or won’t do. That is up to them.”
Business secretary Kwasi Kwarteng claims unilateral action on protocol would not result in a trade war.
From the Twitterati
“It’s not hard: regional inequality deserves far more attention but we also need to be alert to inequalities within regions.”
New Statesman senior editor George Eaton on levelling up.
Essential reading
- Caroline Lucas, The Independent: The government refuses to acknowledge – let alone address – the climate crisis
- John Rentoul, The Independent: Liz Truss’s threat to ‘tear up’ the Northern Ireland protocol is not what it seems
- Bel Trew, The Independent: Time is running out for the British father on hunger strike in an Egyptian prison
- Timothy McLaughlin, The Atlantic: Escape from Hong Kong
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