Tory Brexiteers have issued a warning to Rishi Sunak as the Prime Minister attempts to get his new deal to resolve problems with the Northern Ireland Protocol over the line. 

The premier is in Belfast today to hold crunch talks with political leaders as he attempts to convince them to back his deal which is designed to smooth trade and assuage the concerns of unionists about Northern Ireland's place in the UK.

But Mr Sunak is facing an uphill battle, with the DUP and some of his own Tory MPs expressing major concerns about the deal, particularly over the continued role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Irish affairs. 

David Jones, a former Brexit minister and the deputy chairman of the Tory European Research Group, tweeted: "The Protocol won’t be fixed by displaying green and red signs and pretending the ECJ hasn’t got supreme jurisdiction in Northern Ireland when it manifestly has. NI must cease to be subject to laws made in Brussels. It’s as simple as that. Anything less won’t work."

The exact role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland is one of the most sensitive areas in the agreement. UK sources close to the deal have previously insisted the vast majority of legal disputes about trade in Northern Ireland will not involve the ECJ. 

But the UK Government is no longer insisting that the ECJ must not be the ultimate arbiter on EU law issues in Northern Ireland. That had been the UK position under Liz Truss and for much of Boris Johnson's premiership.

Mr Sunak is undertaking 48 hours of talks on the deal, first in Northern Ireland and then with European leaders at a security conference in Munich tomorrow, and he is then expected to brief his Cabinet and announce the agreement in Parliament on Tuesday next week.

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