LONDON
\nThe UK and the European Union ended years of wrangling on Monday, sealing a deal to resolve their thorny post-Brexit trade dispute over Northern Ireland.
\nBritish Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the \u201cdecisive breakthrough\u201d marked a \u201cnew chapter\u201d in the UK-EU relationship.
\nSunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed off on the deal at a meeting in Windsor England. Von der Leyen told a news conference it was \u201chistoric what we have achieved today.\u201d
\nThe agreement, which will allow goods to flow freely to Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, ends a dispute that has soured UK-EU relations, sparked the collapse of the Belfast-based regional government and shaken Northern Ireland\u2019s decades-old peace process.
\nFixing it is a big victory for Sunak \u2014 but not the end of his troubles. Selling the deal to his own Conservative Party and its Northern Ireland allies may be a tougher struggle. Now Sunak awaits the judgment of Northern Ireland\u2019s Democratic Unionist Party, which is boycotting the region\u2019s power-sharing government until the trade arrangements are changed to its satisfaction.
\nSunak is due to make a statement to the House of Commons later setting out details of the deal.
\nNorthern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a border with an EU member, the Republic of Ireland. When the UK left the bloc in 2020, the two sides agreed to keep the Irish border free of customs posts and other checks because an open border is a key pillar of Northern Ireland\u2019s peace process.
\nInstead there are checks on some goods entering Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK That angered British unionist politicians in Belfast, who say the new trade border in the Irish Sea undermines Northern Ireland\u2019s place in the United Kingdom.
\nThe Democratic Unionist Party collapsed Northern Ireland\u2019s Protestant-Catholic power-sharing government a year ago in protest and has refused to return until the rules are scrapped or substantially rewritten.
\nThe DUP has stayed largely silent in recent days, saying it needs to see the details of a deal before deciding whether it meets the party\u2019s self-imposed tests.
\nDUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said he was \u201cneither positive nor negative\u201d about the deal but would wait to see the details.
\nHints of compromise toward the EU also have sparked opposition from hard-line euroskeptics who form a powerful bloc in Sunak\u2019s governing Conservative Party. Critics include former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who as leader at the time of Brexit signed off on the trade rules that he now derides. Johnson was ousted by the Conservatives last year over ethics scandals, but is widely believed to hope for a comeback.
\nJacob Rees-Mogg, a prominent pro-Brexit Tory lawmaker, said acceptance of any deal \u201cwill all depend\u201d on the DUP. \u201cIf the DUP are against it, I think there will be quite a significant number of Conservatives who are unhappy,\u201d Rees-Moog said.
\nIn a boost for Sunak\u2019s chances of winning Conservative support, lawmaker Steve Baker \u2014 a self-styled \u201cBrexit hardman\u201d who helped topple Prime Minister Theresa May by opposing her Brexit deal in 2019 \u2014 said Sunak was \u201con the cusp of securing a really fantastic result.\u201d
\nSunak has said Parliament will get to debate any deal he strikes, but he hasn\u2019t promised lawmakers a binding vote on it, and no vote in Parliament is expected this week.
\nRelations between the UK and the EU, severely tested during the long Brexit divorce, chilled still further amid disputes over the Northern Ireland Protocol. The UK government introduced a bill that would let it unilaterally rip up parts of the Brexit agreement, a move the EU called illegal.
\nThe bloc accused the UK of failing to honor the legally binding treaty it had signed.
\nThe mood between London and Brussels improved after Sunak, a pragmatic Brexit supporter, took office in October, replacing more belligerent predecessors \u2014 Johnson and Liz Truss.
\nA deal is likely to remove customs checks on the vast majority of goods moving between the UK and Northern Ireland and to give Northern Ireland lawmakers some say over EU rules that apply there as part of the Protocol.
\nThe thorniest issue is the role of the European Court of Justice in resolving any disputes that arise over the rules.
\nThe UK and the EU agreed in their Brexit divorce deal to give the European court that authority. But the DUP and Conservative Brexiteers insist the court must have no jurisdiction in UK matters.
\nAfter sealing the deal, Von der Leyen is due to have tea Monday with King Charles III at Windsor Castle, 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of London. Buckingham Palace said the meeting was taking place on the government\u2019s advice, leading critics to accuse Sunak of dragging the monarch, who is supposed to remain neutral, into a political row.
\n\u201cI cannot quite believe that No. 10 would ask HM the King to become involved in the finalizing of a deal as controversial as this one. It\u2019s crass and will go down very badly in NI,\u201d former Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster said on Twitter.
\nSunak\u2019s spokesman, Max Blain, said the government \u201cwould never\u201d embroil the king in politics.
\n\u201cHis Majesty has met with a number of foreign leaders recently,\u201d he said, including Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukraine\u2019s Volodymyr Zelensky. \u201cThis is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON The UK and the European Union ended years of wrangling on Monday, sealing a deal to resolve their thorny post-Brexit trade dispute over Northern Ireland. British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the \u201cdecisive breakthrough\u201d marked a \u201cnew chapter\u201d in the UK-EU relationship. Sunak and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen signed off on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":316476,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-316459","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n