Is Sunak going soft on the EU in a vital year for Brexit and for his re-election hopes?

“Why does the Government still see the UK as the EU’s surrogate?” asks party leader

Montage © Facts4EU.Org 2023

Feelings about the EU are running high as we go into 2023

Serious questions are now being asked about the Sunak government’s commitment to sorting out the various sovereignty issues which remain, following the UK’s exit from the European Union.

In this report, Brexit Facts4EU.Org highlights just one of these, which many consider to be an iconic issue as well as being a bellweather for the UK Government’s commitment to a full Brexit and the restoration of full sovereignty to the United Kingdom.

Strong words from part of the United Kingdom in response to Government policy

“If Unionists are being trussed up for another betrayal, then strength not weakness must be the response.”
- TUV leader Jim Allister, Belfast, 29 Dec 2022

Just after Christmas (28 Dec 2022), a little-known government minister who sits in the House of Lords wrote a letter to the Chair of the Sub-Committee on the Ireland/Northern Ireland Protocol. The letter is ostensibly about the somewhat arcane issue over the ‘sanitary/phytosanitary (SPS) facilities in Northern Ireland following Committee stage of the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill’.

However this has wider implications for the entire sovereignty issue for the United Kingdom.

Unionists up in arms about Sunak Government’s ‘betrayal’

We must start with the Minister’s letter, which readers can access here. A key passage in the letter states:

“…it is written into the Bill’s text itself that we will not set aside the application of EU law in relation to checks and controls for EU destined goods.”
- Lord Benyon, DEFRA Minister, 28 Dec 2022

In short, no sovereignty for the UK. Below we publish a statement in response, by the leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice party, Jim Allister MLA.

Statement from Jim Allister MLA

“Lord Benyon’s letter on behalf of the government is significant in two key regards.
“Firstly, it confirms that, like the EU, HMG’s focus is only on “the operation of the Protocol”, rather than the reversal of its sovereignty grab and resulting constitutional consequences. Unionists who thought the Protocol Bill had a different intent will be disappointed.

“Secondly, it demonstrates that green and red lanes in fact confirm the existence of the Irish Sea border and will produce even greater and permanent border infrastructure at Larne and Belfast. Even the green lane access would still be under the aegis of the Protocol with declarations and paperwork still required to bring goods from GB, even though they would never leave Northern Ireland. The idea of having to be in a ‘trusted trader scheme’ to trade within your own country is obnoxious and wrong. Such would still leave the ‘same footing’ guarantee of Art 6 of the Acts of Union disapplied!
“Just as TUV called the Protocol right from the beginning, as the Union-dismantling instrument it is, so our warnings that green and red lanes are confirmatory of the Irish Sea border and no panacea are borne out by this revealing letter.
“If Unionists are being trussed up for another betrayal, then, strength, not weakness, must be the response.
“TUV continues to question why the UK sees itself as the EU’s surrogate when it comes to protecting the EU’s Single Market. That should be the task of the EU and it should happen in its own territory. Instead, the Protocol cedes NI to EU control and puts the border down the Irish Sea.”
- Jim Allister MLA, Belfast, 29 Dec 2022

Who is the Remainer-Rejoiner Lord Benyon, who wrote the letter?

Firstly it must be said that as a former MP Richard Benyon was an extremist Remainer. As an MP he was one of those who repeatedly sought to overturn the democratic will of the British people, following the largest vote and mandate in British electoral history.

We must assume his views have not changed, because as recently as September 2019 he had the Conservative whip removed by Prime Minister Boris Johnson for voting for the truly appalling ‘Benn Bill’ (European Union Withdrawal (No. 6) Bill). This was the motion that completely emasculated the Johnson government and prevented them from negotiating effectively with the EU.

Benyon then stood down as an MP at the general election on 12 December 2019, when Boris Johnson won his thumping majority. Somewhat inexplicably he was then elevated by Johnson to the House of Lords. Even more worryingly, just over two months ago (25 Oct 2022) the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promoted him to Minister of State at DEFRA (the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs).

Observations

Many readers might have thought we had seen the back of extremist Remainer-Rejoiner politicians like Lord Benyon, when so many of them stood down (or were defeated) as MPs at the general election of December 2019.

Sadly, this is clearly not the case. Here we have a man who wilfully disobeyed the whip and voted for a motion (the ‘Benn Bill’) that was so obviously designed to make it impossible for the Government of the day to negotiate with the EU from a position of strength.

We must say we didn’t need yet another Remainer-Rejoiner in the Remainer-Rejoiner House of Lords – and yet he was elevated to the upper chamber. We must also say that we would never let any of these people anywhere near the levers of power. Quite why Rishi Sunak made Lord Benyon a Minister at DEFRA is completely beyond us.

Facts4EU.Org’s position has always been that the NI Protocol must go in its entirety. We fully understand the implications of this for the UK-EU relationship, but sovereignty is not negotiable.

What is worrying is that not only is the Sunak Government failing to invoke Art 16 to negate that agreement, but it also seems to be going soft on the EU with Brexit as a whole.

We must get reports like this out there

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[ Sources: DEFRA | Traditional Unionist Voice party | Hansard ] Politicians and journalists can contact us for details, as ever.

Brexit Facts4EU.Org, Mon 02 Jan 2023

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Reader Comments 22

11. Lovejoy , Monday, January 02, 2023, 15:55:

The case for abolishing the House of Lords grows stronger by the day.

12. Joe , Monday, January 02, 2023, 16:02:

Buster, the ignorant troll, who told you that "the Protocol is Brexit"? Do you have some jokey and slightly cruel friends who like to fool you, or just the imaginary ones whom you call 'brown people' and never actually talk to you, but you have to do that for them?

13. jon livesey , Monday, January 02, 2023, 16:42:

The Protocol is about half of one percent of UK trade, so saying that the Protocol is Brexit is foolish, but until the Protocol is dealt with. Brexit is not finished. Passing the NI Legislation and putting the EU back in its box will complete Brexit. Then we can go back to bilateral relationships with European countries, like sane people.

14. jon livesey , Monday, January 02, 2023, 17:01:

The problem with the EU is that is has too much power and not enough, It has the power to obstruct and confuse things, but not enough to get things done. It has the power to come up with a lot of silly sanctions, but if you want Germany to increase its defence spending you have to talk the Sholz. The EU can waste a lot of everyone's time on "energy solidarity" but if you want to save France's nuclear industry you have to offer help to Macron. The EU also gives people like Orban a voice and veto he would not otherwise have. and Orban gives outsiders a wedge they would not otherwise have.
We need to go back to a Europe in which those who make the biggest contribution also make the decisions, and the countries that mainly receive aid talk directly to those giving aid. And where countries that have issues to sort out talk to one another. And alliances will create themselves because they will be defined by threats.

15. Catherine , Monday, January 02, 2023, 17:43:

Buster needs to learn who actually drafted the Northern Ireland Protocol, instead of spewing fiction. The NI Protocol text was drafted in Brussels and in Berlin, over a year before Boris Johnson became PM. The text was presented to Mrs May, which she accepted. Then, after Mrs May resigned and Johnson became PM, the unruly, pro-EU MPs played their dirty tricks again, with the Benn Act, removing the UK's ability to negotiate, and forcing the existing NI Protocol text on the Johnson government. If Buster actually bothers to check the archives, he will find that the NI Protocol text was in place long before Johnson's arrival.

16. Buster , Monday, January 02, 2023, 18:11:

Thank you Catherine for demonstrating how deluded and clueless Brexitists are. The deal negotiated by Mrs May had a section called the NI protocol but this is not the protocol we have now. What May negotiated was always referred to as the backstop. The backstop avoided a border down the Irish Sea. Brexitists in Parliament rejected it three times. After he took over without an election Johnson had the dimwit Frost renegotiate the entire protocol. This happened after Johnson met Vradkar near Liverpool in October 2019. The border down the Irish Sea is entirely the work of dimwit Frost and corrupt fraud Johnson.
I appreciate like most Brexitists you are probably a bit thick but just because you didn’t pay attention to the ins and outs your failed and cretinous project doesn’t mean none of us did. The protocol as it stands is entirely the work of you gutless Brexitists. Grow a pair and own your mess - and stop whinging at those of us who told you in advance that your crap project was in fact crap. If you hadn’t all been so tfhick you wouldn’t have voted leave in the first place.

17. Peter Smith , Monday, January 02, 2023, 19:10:

Voting Brexit wasn't the problem. It was the Clowns we were stuck with, to implement it.

18. Stephen West , Monday, January 02, 2023, 19:19:

He is going to sell us out to the EU

19. jon livesey , Monday, January 02, 2023, 20:03:

The "backstop" would have kept the *entire* UK in a "customs union" with the EU. Guess who would have run that customs union, and how much the UK would have been controlled by it and then guess why Buster is so enthusiastic about it. The backstop was just a wheeze to negate Brexit and keep the UK under EU control without being a member and without having a vote. The backstop was the most cynical and dishonest proposal ever made.
Just ask yourself, why is it that buster, who curses and damns every Conservative politician with foul language, nevertheless talks about Theresa May as if she walks on water. It's just Buster's lies within Buster's lies.

20. jon livesey , Monday, January 02, 2023, 20:26:

One obvious thing is that unhappy people reserve their real venom for things they are afraid of. And what really puts the fear into Buster is the very real prospect that the NIP will be finally negotiated and sorted out, Because then there will be no open issues left that Remainers can pick at. Deal with the NIP and people like Buster will have no further function. No wonder he is in a panic.
And by the way, Buster would reimpose backstop on the UK, put UK trade and industry back under EU control, and compel the UK taxpayer to give 15bn a year to the EU without a vote, in order to fix what, exactly? To save Buster a roaming charge on his phone, he says.
Does that add up?

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