DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson made the comments on Friday just hours after British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak met with Stormont party leaders in Belfast.
Speculation had been mounting that Britain and the EU were close to an agreement on the future of the controversial trading arrangement.
However, no text has yet been finalised, according to Donaldson, who told the media on Friday that progress had been made on a number of issues.
“Over the last 48 hours we’ve been engaging with officials: (I) met the Prime Minister last evening and this morning,” he said.
“We have not yet seen the final text of an agreement—clearly there will be further discussions between the UK Government and the European Union—but I think it is safe to say that progress has been made across a range of areas, but there are still some areas where further work is required.”
The DUP leader added: “If and when a final agreement is reached, we will want to carefully consider the detail of that agreement and decide if the agreement does in fact meet our seven tests.”
“We’ve been very clear with the Prime Minister that those seven tests remain the basis upon which we will judge any agreement,” said Donaldson.
Hope for a Breakthrough
The Northern Ireland Protocol is the trade deal that was agreed upon to ensure the free movement of goods across the Irish land border after Brexit.The arrangements shifted customs and regulatory checks to the Irish Sea and created new red tape on the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with trade in the region remaining subject to certain EU Single Market rules.
Many unionists vociferously oppose the arrangement, claiming it has undermined the region’s standing within the UK.
Currently, the protocol issues are at the centre of a political stalemate in the province, with the DUP refusing to take part in Northern Ireland’s power-sharing government unless concerns around trading arrangements are resolved.
Donaldson said Friday there was no specific timeframe outlined for further discussions.
“I do not believe that anyone should be led by a calendar,” he said. “What is fundamentally and most important here is getting it right. That must be the ultimate goal. That is our goal. That’s what we’re committed to—getting this right and getting it done.”
He added: “We will keep working at this until we’ve got to the place where we can say that an outcome meets our seven tests and enables us to move towards the restoration of the political institutions here in Northern Ireland, which remains our objective.”
Asked whether the DUP was prepared to compromise, Donaldson said the focus should instead be on whether the UK Government was willing to stand by the commitments it had made and included in the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill.
Donaldson’s hope for a deal was echoed by other Stormont parties including Sinn Fein, who also met with the Prime Minister on Friday morning.
Big Test
Describing the talks as “constructive,” Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said: “I believe that very, very significant progress has been made and I believe that a deal is absolutely possible, and absolutely necessary.”“I think the British Prime Minister is here to see what everybody thinks and to listen to all perspectives,” she said after meeting with Rishi Sunak in Belfast.
“The DUP talk about their tests. But, you know, there’s one bigger test for everyone. And that’s the test of what people expect,” she said.
“There will be a test for everyone. The test will be: Are you prepared to govern? Are you prepared to share power on the basis of equality? And everybody concerned is going to face that test, we believe, fairly soon.”
“It was a very constructive meeting and it was my first occasion to meet the Prime Minister, but I look forward to many further engagements with him,” said McDonald.
“He accepts that the core of the protocol has worked and he has expressed the need to negotiate and to figure out how to resolve those parts that need a smoother application, or, as he put it, ‘the parts that weren’t working.’
Ticking Boxes
After meeting with the Prime Minister, Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie said details on a potential deal had not been outlined.“We are in that position where we could have something next week, but it may be another couple of weeks yet,” he said regarding the prospects of an agreement.
“We don’t know and I don’t leave here knowing much more than I knew when we first went in. But certainly the Prime Minister was enthusiastic, engaged and positive, and that has given me something to take away from this.”
Beattie added: “He’s saying that things are moving in the right direction. He’s confident that when he puts something on the table which is a deal, which he thinks will work for everybody in Northern Ireland, it will be a deal that unionism can accept.”
He said he believed that Mr. Sunak wanted to “tick the box” of engaging with the political parties in Northern Ireland.
“I think he’s very careful not to get into too much detail until the deal is done, and I suppose that’s fair enough,” he said.
Labour Votes
Friday’s Northern Ireland talks happened as British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly met with the vice president of the European Commission for Interinstitutional Relations, Maros Sefcovic, in Brussels.Describing it as a constructive meeting, Cleverly tweeted: “We discussed the work ongoing between the UK and EU to find a solution on the NI Protocol. Intensive work continues.”
Sefcovic said there had been constructive engagement and that good progress had been made.
“The shared objective (is) clear: joint solutions, responding to the everyday concerns of people in NI. Hard work continues,” he tweeted.
Meanwhile, Labour will offer Rishi Sunak the additional votes he needs to get the protocol deal through Parliament, the shadow justice secretary said on Friday.
Steve Reed told reporters: “We’ll wait and see what the government is coming forward with. It’s very important for everybody in the United Kingdom that this problem is resolved. It’s a problem that is of this government’s own making, of course.”
He added: “Labour wants this problem fixed, so we are prepared to give Rishi Sunak the additional votes he needs to get this through Parliament, and it’s important that the Prime Minister works with the Labour Party—rather than listen to the extremists in his own ranks who do not want to resolve this problem that has caused a division inside our United Kingdom.”
On the Bill of Rights, Reed warned: “We have got the Prime Minister today in Northern Ireland, we hope with a deal to resolve the issues around the Northern Ireland Protocol.
“What we do not want to happen is that that selfsame Prime Minister then rips up the Human Rights Act, which underpins the Good Friday Agreement, because if he puts peace in Northern Ireland in peril in that way, that is an act of unforgivable irresponsibility.”
