UK and EU to approve new Brexit pact

The UK and EU were due to formally agree on a post-Brexit deal to overhaul Northern Irish trade rules after MPs from both parties approved it despite a rebellion by some Tory MPs.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly. Picture: AFP

The UK and EU were due to formally agree on a post-Brexit deal to overhaul Northern Irish trade rules after MPs from both parties approved it despite a rebellion within Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s Conservatives.

British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and EU Commission vice-president Maros Sefcovic were expected to sign the “Windsor Framework” at a joint committee meeting in London overnight on Friday.

British MPs overwhelmingly endorsed a crucial part of the deal on Wednesday, in the face of a rebellion by former leader Boris Johnson and other hardline Tory Eurosceptics.

The vote on the framework’s so-called “Stormont brake” – which hands Northern Irish deputies an effective veto over new EU rules being implemented in the British province – won the backing of 515 MPs, with 29 ­opposed. Democratic Unionist Party also voted against it. Northern Ireland is still in the European Customs union and single market because of the need to keep an open border with EU member Ireland as part of a 1998 peace deal.

AFP