Tory revolt brews as Brexit deal nears

 Tory revolt brews as Brexit deal nears

Source- Telegraph front page 27/02/22

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The European Commission president will fly to London today to finalise a new Brexit deal with Rishi Sunak, despite warnings from Tory MPs that they will revolt if European judges retain a say over Northern Ireland. The Prime Minister will hold face-to-face talks with Ursula Von der Leyen, and the pair are expected to hold a press conference to announce the deal before it is presented to Parliament. However, Tory Eurosceptics and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) warned last night that they will not back a deal unless EU law is "expunged" from Northern Ireland – something they fear Mr Sunak’s agreement will fail to do. There is also concern over the fact that Downing Street has yet to explicitly confirm that MPs will be given a vote on the deal.

Our Home Affairs Editor Charles Hymas writes that frustrations are being fuelled by the fact that Brexiteers feel they have been left in the dark during the talks. One Eurosceptic MP said Downing Street had kept them and colleagues out of the loop because it wanted to "set everything up" and present the deal to MPs as "a fait accompli". Another said that even members of the Cabinet appeared to be unaware of the details of the deal, comparing No 10’s approach to the secrecy of Theresa May’s administration. Mr Sunak is expected to unveil the proposals without the explicit endorsement of the DUP, whose lawyers will scrutinise its text line by line before deciding whether it meets the seven tests they have laid out, including the protection of UK sovereignty.