The former Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, has said it is “crucial parliament has a vote” on the much-anticipated deal to end the dispute with the EU over post Brexit trading arrangements in Northern Ireland.
Villiers was speaking hours before the European Commission vice-president, Ursula von der Leyen, was due to meet Rishi Sunak for what No 10 has billed “final talks” over a revised Northern Ireland protocol pact.
Villiers, who campaigned for Brexit while in her post in Northern Ireland, which voted to remain in the EU, said she did not know how she would vote but wanted a deal that would enable the return of the Democratic Unionist party to the Stormont devolved government.
“I want to see a deal which delivers a return to power-sharing in NI,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
In what could be the most perilous week of his political life, the prime minister will meet Von der Leyen at lunchtime on Monday.
The cabinet will meet shortly after in the afternoon, when Sunak, the foreign secretary, James Cleverly and the Northern Ireland secretary, Chris Heaton-Harris, will give an update on the talks.
Sunak and Von der Leyen will then head to Windsor, raising speculation as to whether the European Commission chief will meet King Charles in a gesture that has already been widely criticised after plans for of such an arrangement were made for Saturday and then cancelled.
Dominic Raab, the deputy prime minister and former Brexit secretary, is backing a deal. On Sunday, he said it would mark “a significant achievement” for Sunak and would be “a significant shift in the paradigm of arrangements” for Northern Ireland.
“If we can get this over the line … it will be a really important deal. I think it would mark a paradigm shift, first and foremost for those communities,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg programme.
But whether Sunak will be immune to the forces that felled Theresa May is unclear. The DUP is not expected to give an instant verdict on the deal but few expect it to back it as the party has been demanding an end to the application of EU law in Northern Ireland, arguing it makes it a colony of EU law.
Pro-Brexit supporters in the Conservative party’s European Research Group are also unlikely to back a deal that retains a role for EU law and the European court of justice.
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As the concept of the protocol is predicated on EU law applying, it is highly unlikely it will be scrapped as this would throw out the protocol entirely.
Mark Francois, the former chairman of the ERG, demanded EU law be “expunged” from Northern Ireland, warning Sunak that MPs are “not stupid”.
He told Sky that merely distancing the role of the ECJ by giving Northern Ireland courts and Stormont ministers a say in disputes and EU law is not good enough. “Just putting in a couple of intermediate phases, with a situation where you still end up with the European court of justice, is effectively sophistry,” Francois said.
“We’re not stupid. What we want is a situation where EU law is expunged from Northern Ireland so it is treated on the same basis as England, Scotland and Wales,” he added.
