After years of red tape and political rows over sausages and sovereignty – not to mention the collapse of the power-sharing agreement in Stormont – a new deal has finally been struck over the Northern Ireland protocol.
Rishi Sunak and the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, have announced their Windsor framework to ease the flow of goods between Northern Ireland and Britain. They hope this new deal will appease the Democratic Unionist party, which has boycotted power sharing in Northern Ireland over the protocol. The Guardian’s Brexit correspondent, Lisa O’Carroll, explains the roots of the protocol deal and what it could mean for people in Northern Ireland to Hannah Moore.
Under the Windsor framework fast-track green lanes will be set up for goods travelling from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland. It also allows for a Stormont brake, allowing the Northern Ireland assembly to stop new EU single market rules applying in Northern Ireland. Controversially, however, EU law will still apply in Northern Ireland and the European court of justice will oversee the protocol.
So is this a win for Sunak? And has he done enough to win the support of the DUP and allow power sharing in Northern Ireland to resume? The Guardian’s deputy political editor, Jessica Elgot, analyses what this could mean for the prime minister, his rival Boris Johnson, and the Conservative party.
Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
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