A minster has urged Conservative MPs to back Rishi Sunak on Brexit and accept the deal the prime minister brings back from Brussels on improving the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Minister for veterans affairs Johnny Mercer said critics need to “operate in the real world” on Brexit and that “we need to resolve this issue” to allow the government to focus on tackling “all the other challenges that we are facing”.
The comments come as the prime minister facing a growing backlash from Conservative MPs over his Brexit deal amid fears it will not go far enough in some areas. Members of the European Research Group (ERG), the key Conservative vehicle of euroscepticism, are urging Mr Sunak to end EU involvement in Northern Ireland’s affairs.
Mr Mercer said that if Mr Sunak is happy with his deal then “I am happy” as he suggested MPs should support “whatever [the prime minister] comes back with”.
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Mr Mercer told Times Radio: “We have got to operate in the real world, right? And I think that is the problem with this debate over many years.
“Rishi Sunak campaigned, voted for and is very committed to Brexit as you have seen a number of times and I think whatever he comes back with, we need to resolve this issue and we need to get on and seize the opportunities of Brexit that have been talked about for so long.
“I hope colleagues recognise the work he is putting into it, I think he is taking the right approach and I think what he comes back with, if he is happy, I am happy and we get on with it and tackle all the other challenges that we are facing today.”
Yesterday evening, members of the ERG met the Democratic Unionist party leader, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson to discuss a joint approach. Both want to see radical changes to the Brexit trading arrangements, which would see EU law eliminated in Northern Ireland.
The current rules were introduced in 2021 as part of the Northern Ireland Protocol negotiated by then-prime minister Boris Johnson.
The rules introduced checks on goods sent from mainland Britain to Northern Ireland, getting around the need for checks at the UK’s border with the Republic of Ireland.
The rules have proved highly unpopular with unionists in northern Ireland and saw the DUP, Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party, collapse power-sharing arrangements in February of last year.
A majority of members of the Stormont assembly are pro-Protocol, but Sinn Féin, the Alliance Party and the SDLP (Social Democratic and Labour Party) have nonetheless urged improvements to ease its implementation.
Speaking recently on a Conservative Home podcast, former ERG chair Jacob Rees-Mogg argued there was “no point” agreeing a deal which does not have the support of the DUP.
“I don’t know why so much political capital has been spent on something without getting the DUP and the ERG (European Research Group of Conservative MPs) onside first”, he said.
Conversely, Johnny Mercer said today: “Let’s give the Prime Minister a chance to come out with something. He’s attacking this, he is throwing everything he can into it. He voted for and campaigned hard for Brexit, right?
“So he is not going to sell anyone out or come up with a solution that is unfair or doesn’t deliver on what he thinks is Brexit.
“I think, let’s give him a chance, let’s give him the opportunity to bring some sort of resolution to the protocol and then let’s get behind him and get on with all the other challenges that we face across this country at the moment.”
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