DUP to vote against Rishi Sunak's Windsor Framework in blow to new Brexit deal
20 March 2023, 13:22 | Updated: 20 March 2023, 13:43
The DUP will vote against the Windsor Framework when Parliament votes on the Brexit legislation on Wednesday.
The new legislation will be debated in Parliament on Wednesday as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak seeks to pass his attempt to iron out issues with the Northern Ireland Protocol.
The Democratic Unionist Party leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said that while he will vote against the new laws, he would continue to work with Westminster to "outstanding issues".
Boris Johnson's influence could be key to whether the changes sail through in an expected vote by MPs or if serious opposition is mounted now that the DUP has signalled their opposition.
Some EU law will still apply in Northern Ireland - but Mr Sunak said it would be the bare minimum required for frictionless trade between the province and the EU, preventing a hard border in Ireland.
The deal was agreed between Rishi Sunak and European Commission president Ursula von Der Leyen in February and Sunak will honour his pledge to allow Parliament to debate the issue with a 90-minute debate on Wednesday.
MPs in the House of Commons had mixed reactions in the immediate wake of the deal's announcement.
Conservative former minister and staunch Brexit supporter David Davis gave his backing to the deal, describing it as "a spectacular negotiating success".
Paying tribute to the Stormont brake in particular, he added: "I am unaware of any mechanism in any international agreement like the Stormont brake. It seems to me a brilliant piece of negotiating insight and imagination.
But Conservative former minister Mark Francois, chairman of the European Research Group (ERG) made up of Eurosceptic Tory MPs, said he wanted assurances that he "won't find any nasty surprises" when looking at the deal in more detail.
He said: "As a former chancellor, he knows well that on budget day the Government puts a good gloss on whatever they're putting to the public but then you have to read through the red book to just check on the fine detail.
"He's worked very hard on this so can he assure me and the whole House that when we go through the red book, or in this instance the detailed legal text, we won't find any nasty surprises which will materially undermine the position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom?"
