London, Thanasis Gavos

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) of Northern Ireland announced that he would vote against the new agreement on N. Ireland in its context Brexit which they concluded weeks ago UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

The new deal, called the Windsor Framework, removes controls on trade from the UK to Northern Ireland and allows the local Stormont parliament to reject future EU legislation, instituting the so-called ‘Stormond Brake’.

It does, however, retain the jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice over cases involving (reduced) Community laws which will continue to apply in Northern Ireland to protect the single market.

On Wednesday, the Sunak government is bringing the Stormond Brake to the House of Commons for a vote.

DUP leader Sir Geoffrey Donaldson said his party would vote against the measure because, while overall the Windsor Framework is a “significant advance” over the previous Northern Ireland Protocol, it fails to address some of the “fundamental problems”.

As he explained, the main problem is the continued enforcement of EU law in Northern Ireland.

The DUP’s opposition is expected to lead to a “mutiny” by several of the ruling Conservative Party’s most Eurosceptic MPs in Wednesday’s vote.

With the opposition parties, however, having declared that they will support the Windsor Framework, the new agreement is expected to go through the legislative process.