The Brexit deal on Northern Ireland negotiated by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was merely designed to placate the British public and will still leave the European Court of Justice with ultimate authority over the British province, the EU’s top negotiator on the matter revealed in a leaked recording.
Confirming fears expressed by Brexiteers and British Unionists in Northern Ireland, European Commission Vice President for Interinstitutional Relations and Foresight Maroš Šefčovič was reportedly recorded stating that the deal struck by Prime Minister Sunak was intended to win favourable headlines in the British press rather than actually regain sovereignty over Northern Ireland — an integral part of the United Kingdom that has been forced to abide by EU customs diktats and onerous regulations under the Protocol agreed to by former prime minister Boris Johnson.
The recording of the Slovakian eurocrat speaking to other politicians in Brussels, obtained by The Telegraph, documented Šefčovič saying: “Be under no impression that there will be a diminishing of the role of the European Court of Justice… We’ve been very clear from the beginning until the end, the role of the ECJ as the sole and final arbiter of EU law stays in place.”
The ‘Windsor Framework‘ agreed to by Sunak and EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen set out a process dubbed the ‘Stormont Break’ in which legislators in the devolved (local) parliament in Northern Ireland can supposedly override EU regulations, including on rules imposed upon British trade.
However, Šefčovič said that this concession was more window dressing than anything else, insisting that the final ruling on any such dispute would be in the hands of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and therefore Northern Ireland would still be under the effective rule of the EU rather than “taking back control” of its own sovereignty as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak suggested.
“This [Stormont Brake] is very much limited in the scope, and it’s really under very strict conditions,” the eurocrat said. “On top of that, if we do not feel convinced, we have our joint bodies to deal with this issue, or eventually this case could be presented to the arbitration.
“If we don’t feel the third parties perspective, we will have the possibility to take limited remedial measures because we can tell them it’s affecting the functioning of our Single Market.”
He went on to urge MEPs to not push back against claims made by British government ministers about reclaiming sovereignty in the province, and that the deal was designed to ensure that any future disputes would be prevented from rising to a “level that would generate political headlines,” adding: “We’ll see what we hear from the UK press.”
Ironically, the comments from Šefčovič, being picked up by a British newspaper, will likely serve as ammunition against the deal for members of the pro-Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of Tory MPs in Westminster, as well as the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) in Northern Ireland, which has refused to form a government in Stormont since last year over the existing Northern Ireland Protocol, as it feels that the current situation for NI fundamentally undermines the British Union.
Follow Kurt Zindulka on Twitter here @KurtZindulka