Rishi Sunak: No deal yet on protocol - ​More work to do, says PM after meeting parties

The Prime Minister stressed that "we have not got a deal yet" as he vowed to continue negotiating with the European Commission "intensely".

Mr Sunak met with Stormont leaders earlier on Friday amid mounting speculation that the Government and EU are on the cusp of unveiling an agreement on the contentious Irish trading arrangements.

Speaking to broadcasters in Downing Street after returning from his trip, the Prime Minister said: "Today I had positive conversations with political parties in Northern Ireland about our ongoing discussions to resolve the Northern Ireland Protocol.

"Now it's clear that we need to find solutions to the practical problems that the protocol is causing families and businesses in Northern Ireland, as well as address the democratic deficit.

"Now there's more work to do. And that's why my ministerial colleagues and I will continue talking to the European Union intensely to find solutions that protect the Belfast Good Friday Agreement and Northern Ireland's place in our single market."

Asked if he was confident he would get there, Mr Sunak said: "As I said, there's work to do. We have not got a deal yet."

The five main Stormont parties – Sinn Fein, the DUP, Alliance, the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP – were invited for individual meetings with Mr Sunak.

It was put to Mr Sunak that DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson had said the EU needed to "stretch itself to achieve a deal".

Asked if he agreed, the Prime Minister said he had set himself "tests" on any potential agreement with Brussels, including "crucially that we address the democratic deficit".

Following his visit to Northern Ireland, the Prime Minister is set to join European leaders in Germany this weekend for the Munich Security Conference - and the protocol is likely to feature in discussions on the margins.

In another apparent sign of progress, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly was in Brussels on Friday for a meeting with European Commission vice president Maros Sefcovic – an encounter both politicians described as "constructive".

The UK and the EU have been engaged in substantive negotiations over the workings of the protocol, which was included in the Withdrawal Agreement to ensure the free movement of goods across the Irish land border after Brexit.

The protocol instead created economic barriers on trade being shipped from Great Britain to Northern Ireland.

It has proven to be deeply unpopular with unionists, who claim it has weakened Northern Ireland's place within the UK, and the DUP has used a Stormont veto to collapse the power-sharing institutions in protest at the arrangements.

The immediate future of devolution at Stormont therefore rests on whether or not the DUP is content with any new protocol deal.

Sinn Fein's Mary Lou McDonald says Rishi Sunak told her that "the core" of the Protocol is working fine, and all that need be done is to fix "the parts that weren’t working".

Emerging from his own meeting with Rishi Sunak, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood said the Prime Minister had given “scant” detail on the potential deal with the EU, something echoed by the UUP.

Speaking after her encounter with Mr Sunak, Ms McDonald said: “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’.”