A pro-Brexit Conservative MP has described the actions of his own party’s government as “bent” and “rigged” after it was reported that parliamentary committee members were sacked “to prevent another Brexit revolution.”
Tory critics are delighted by the scene, declaring that the party is at “civil war.”
The committee was due to discuss elements of the so-called ‘Windsor Framework,’ an agreement between London and Brussels on the post-Brexit status of Northern Ireland. We reported in February on the discontent the settlement caused among those who felt it handed over too much power to the EU and drew a dividing line between Britain and Northern Ireland (that is, between one part of the United Kingdom and the rest).
According to the ‘Remainers’, the controversial section of the Windsor Framework was never intended to change—only the rhetoric, and only to bring critics to his side. But now, five months later, cuts are being made. The government has removed five MPs from the committee because it knew, in advance of the vote, that these MPs would not lend their support because of the actual changes that occurred.
A vote was to take place on postal regulations, which form a part of the Windsor Framework. This would have seen some parcels delivered between Britain and Northern Ireland subjected to customs checks for the first time. “The impact of these regulations,” said Northern Ireland MP Ian Paisley Jr., “is to deepen the reality of the border down the Irish Sea rather than to remove it.”
Having discovered that some of its party members would raise complaints about these rules in the committee meeting, government whips (officials in charge of party voting discipline) replaced them with other MPs. Several parliamentarians were shocked, insisting they had “never seen anything like it.” A government source quoted in Express Online blamed “a scheduling issue” for the shake-up, while other parliamentary officials said whips were within their rights to replace members up to ten minutes before the committee hearing. Tory MPs complained, however, that convention states members are only replaced if they cannot attend “for some personal reason.”
Tory Brexiteer Mark Francois said the substitutes were “not quite as inquisitive” as those who had been removed. He described the government’s action as “manipulating the parliamentary process because the Windsor Framework is clearly a failure.”
Businessman and former Brexit party MEP Ben Habib, who spoke at The European Conservative’s recent event on migration, also described the committee stand-ins as “Tory-Remainer puppets,” adding that “it should now be clear, Rishi Sunak is neither a Brexiter nor a Unionist. He also cannot be trusted.” Mr. Habib told this publication:
When Sunak revealed the Windsor Framework, he said it would get rid of the Irish Sea border and checks would only apply for goods destined for the Republic of Ireland via Northern Ireland. You would think therefore that no checks would be applied on private parcels being sent from Great Britain to Northern Ireland. Well, that is exactly what the EU and Windsor Framework required and precisely what Sunak yesterday delivered. He had hoped to do it under the radar through secondary legislation.
He wanted to make one principal change to the Postal Services Act 2000, the act which governs parcels being sent out of the UK. His change however was seismic and revealed his lie about the Windsor Framework. It was this: to treat Northern Ireland as a foreign jurisdiction and thereby subject all parcels going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland to checks. There is a hard Irish Sea border and it is one which rips Northern Ireland away from Great Britain.
After the pro-Brexit MPs had been removed, the committee voted 11 to one in favour of the government’s legislation, which has not been debated in the House of Commons. A high-profile pro-Brexit Tory lobby in Parliament, quoted in the Express, responded to the vote by noting that “replacing the five Conservative MPs made the difference. If the original ones had stayed on, the government would have been defeated.”
