Brexiteers and Unionists Slam EU Chief’s Audience with King as ‘Crass’
Britain’s King Charles III receives European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during an audience at Windsor Castle
InternationalIndiaAfricaJames TweedieBritish PM Rishi Sunak and European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen struck a deal to lance the long-festering boil of the Northern Ireland Protocol after a meeting in Windsor — prompting claims the Brussels boss was wooed by a meeting with the King.Pro-Brexit Tory MPs and Unionist leaders have condemned the decision to grant the European Union’s chief executive an audience with King Charles III.European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen met the King at Windsor Castle on Monday following her talks with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in the town just west of London to resolve the crisis over the Northern Ireland Protocol.Downing Street insisted that von der Leyen’s invitation to meet the king was not linked to the negotiations and was made at the royal household’s initiative.But Buckingham Palace said the king was acting on “the government’s advice.””We’d never be seen to frame any action as an endorsement,” Sunak’s spokesman said. When asked why the two leaders met in Windsor and not Westminster, he added: “There are a number of occasions when these sorts of talks have been held in significant places, this is no different.”The spokesman pointed out that the King had recently Polish President Andrzej Duda and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky — on his controversial surprise visit to beg for more arms capable of striking deep inside Russian territory.But former Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg, a leading member of the powerful European Research Group of backbencher Brexiteers, said the meeting was inappropriate.
"It is surprising that the King will meet Ursula von der Leyen," Rees-Mogg said, "as it antagonises the people the PM needs to conciliate."
“It is also constitutionally unwise to involve the King in a matter of immediate political controversy,” he observed.Former Democratic Unionist party (DUP) leader and Northern Irish first minister Arlene Foster said she “could not quite believe that No 10 would ask the King to become involved in the finalising of a deal as controversial as this one.””It’s crass and will go down very badly in Northern Ireland,” Foster stressed. “We must remember this is not the King’s decision but the government who, it appears, are tone deaf.”DUP chief whip Sammy Wilson said the meeting was “dragging the King into a hugely controversial political issue.”Even former state media royal correspondent Peter Hunt weighed in, saying the audience was “a very serious error of judgment by King Charles and his advisers,” and that the king had “abandoned his unifying role and entered the political fray, in a foolish bid to be seen as statesmanlike.”
WorldUK and EU Reach Deal on Northern Ireland Trade RulesYesterday, 14:31 GMTSunak and von der Leyen reached agreement “in principle” on changes to the Northern Preland Protocol, an annexe to the UK’s post-Brexit withdrawal agreement with the EU, which keeps the UK’s exclave of Northern Ireland within the EU’s single market.The Republic of Ireland, a member of the bloc, insisted that ‘backstop’ arrangement was necessary to avoid a ‘hard border’ with customs checks that might breach the terms of the 1999 Good Friday Agreement which ended three decades of sectarian terrorism in the north.But the arrangement has meant customs checks on goods coming from mainland Britain and even bans on certain products like sausages and potted nursery plants. That has angered the majority unionist community, leading to unrest and a hoax bomb threat to Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.Sunak travelled to in Northern Ireland on Tuesday in a bid to gain cross-party support for the deal, after commending it to the House of Commons on Monday.Von der Leyen, a former German defence minister notorious for her mismanagement of her country’s armed forces, took a much more antagonistic line towards Sunak’s former boss Boris Johnson during his three years in 10 Downing Street, refusing to negotiate with Downing Street over the protocol. She launched a ‘vaccine war’ on the UK after Johnson’s government rolled out COVID-19 jabs months before the European Commission’s centralised procurement and distribution scheme got moving.
