King to meet EU chief at Windsor as NI Brexit deal done

King Charles volition conscionable EU main Ursula von der Leyen for beverage astatine Windsor Castle, aft she was owed to conscionable Rishi Sunak to hold a Northern Ireland Brexit deal.

Buckingham Palace said the gathering had been arranged connected the proposal of the government.

Number 10 said it was "fundamentally" a determination for the King.

But determination person been warnings against drafting the monarch into a contentious governmental dispute.

Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, a Brexiteer and erstwhile furniture minister, said it was "constitutionally unwise to impact the King successful a substance of contiguous governmental controversy".

Sammy Wilson, main whip of the Democratic Unionist Party, said the gathering would hazard "dragging the King into a hugely arguable governmental issue".

But the premier minister's authoritative spokesperson likened the gathering with Ms von der Leyen to the King's different caller meetings with visiting planetary dignitaries specified arsenic Polish President Andrzej Duda oregon Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"It's for the King to marque those decisions," said the Number 10 spokesman.

"The King is pleased to conscionable immoderate satellite person if they are visiting Britain and it is the government's proposal that helium should bash so," said a palace spokesman.

At astir 14:20 GMT, up of the meeting, a elder Government root told the BBC a caller Brexit statement for Northern Ireland had been reached.

The EU sought to region the Windsor gathering from governmental negotiations, saying the gathering betwixt the King and the European Commission president was "separate" and "not part" of the talks implicit the Northern Ireland protocol.

Buckingham Palace sources emphasised that this was a regular gathering betwixt the King and a visiting planetary person and would physique connected different erstwhile meetings betwixt the King and Ms von der Leyen.

The Windsor Castle meeting, wherever beverage volition beryllium served and photographs taken, was described successful presumption of a wider agenda, specified arsenic discussions astir clime alteration and Ukraine.