Can Rishi Sunak and Leo Varadkar keep the peace in Northern Ireland?

Who cares about the Northern Ireland Protocol? Jeffrey Donaldson and the DUP do. But do you? More to the point, does Rishi Sunak? 

My guess is that the Prime Minister would gladly endorse a United Ireland if it meant a solid, lasting bond between the UK and the EU. He would presumably regret the offence caused to diehard unionists by their defenestration, but against their loss he would measure the gain of easy access to Europe on all fronts and vastly improved relationships with its leaders, Ireland’s new Taoiseach included. 

As trade minister, foreign secretary and – briefly – prime minister, Liz Truss was committed to the effective abandonment of the Protocol, which, while preventing the emergence of a hard border with the Republic, establishes a customs border down the Irish Sea. She held to the view that the measure, signed into law by her predecessor Boris Johnson, was unworkable and a betrayal of unionism. Her solution, designed to placate both the DUP and her own party’s European Research Group, was the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, a controversial piece of legislation that would unilaterally override core aspects of the original deal at the likely cost of a trade war with the EU. 

Sunak wants no part of that. Ideally, he would leave the protocol in place. It was agreed, after all, during his time as Chancellor, when it was hailed as the answer to a nation’s prayer – the nation in question being, of course, England. The fact that the DUP regards it as stage one of British disengagement is to the new PM unfortunate but, frankly, of no more than secondary importance. 

To advance the appropriate fudge, officials from London and Brussels have in recent weeks been engaged in talks aimed at mitigating the day-to-day impact of the Protocol while preserving its status as an integral part of the UK-EU withdrawal agreement. Negotiations at political level have not yet begun. Such talks could take flight if one of the key participants on the EU side turns out to be Leo Varadkar, the Dublin-born son of a family doctor from Mumbai.  

To Sunak, who prefers the dog to wag its tail, not the other way round, Northern Ireland is the gift that keeps on taking. And he is not the only one. The last time the province was part of mainstream politics in Westminster (if we exclude the unhappy premiership of Theresa May when the DUP kept her minority government afloat) was 1998, when the Good Friday accords were signed, restoring a semblance of peace after 30 years of war. The Labour Party has for many years endorsed the principle of Irish unity, while the Tories have never resiled from the position that Britain has “no selfish or strategic interest” in this particular Union (as distinct from that with Scotland) and would remain “rigorously impartial” in any talks aimed at settling the question once and for all. 

Today, after all that has happened, most of it either bloody or wearisome, the Prime Minister wants fresh elections in NI in much the same way that he wants open borders with Albania. 

The current Ulster Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, kept on in his role largely because, as a former leader of the ERG, he could have caused trouble during the coup that finally brought Sunak to power, has been put in his box. He was rash enough to promise a second round of elections to the Stormont Assembly if the DUP did not abandon its six-month boycott by midnight on 31 October. Sadly for him, Donaldson and Co held firm, repeating their mantra that there could be no Executive as long as the Protocol remained in place. 

At Stormont, ministers who had remained in holding pattern pending some resolution of the issue were automatically fired, leaving civil servants in charge with no prospect that the situation would improve after voters went to the polls for the second time just six months after the DUP first downed tools. 

Heaton-Harris had in fact achieved the near impossible, earning for himself the derision not only of the refusnik DUP but of the ever-ready-to-go Sinn Fein. Donaldson was scornful of the Secretary of State, who he said had no idea how to proceed, while Michelle O’Neil, the Shinners’ candidate to be First Minister at Stormont, denounced his “dithering and indecision”. 

Almost nobody in Northern Ireland wants another bout of election fever. The parties and the voters are painfully aware that the result would be more of the same, with no more than three or four seats changing hands. Direct rule from London – one of just two realistic alternatives – is anathema to Sinn Fein (and the IRA); the other is some form of joint jurisdiction involving London and Dublin, which would almost certainly lead the loyalist UDA and UVF to end their ceasefires and renew attacks on Republican targets, including government offices south of the Border. 

Sunak is not up for any of that. His hands are almost comically full as it is. He and his chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, are engaged full-time in preparing the Autumn Statement that they hope will mark the beginnings of a UK economic recovery following the disaster of the Truss-Kwarteng mini-budget. The election was abruptly cancelled by decree, leaving Heaton-Harris with egg on his face. Having U-turned already on the matter of his attendance at the COP 27 climate conference in Egypt, Sunak obviously decided he had nothing to lose by U-turning on Stormont elections as well – especially as the blame in this case would be heaped on the hapless, and perhaps short-lived, NI secretary.

Where we go from here, nobody knows. Political talks involving Sunak and the EU could provide a means of escape, but this would require a delicate balance between what the EU will countenance on the part of the Protocol (which it regards as settled law) and what the DUP will accept as a guarantor of Northern Ireland’s long-term membership of the United Kingdom. 

The fact that later this month, in accordance with an agreement struck between the two governing parties in Ireland, Leo Varadkar will return as Taoiseach for the next two years is seen by some as the happiest of accidents. Both the British and Irish premiers will then be of Indian heritage, free of many of the shibboleths that in the past have inhibited progress in relations between the UK and Ireland. Both are reasonable men of high intelligence. Both are liberals. With luck and a following wind, they may just find ways through the Ulster maze that were denied to their predecessors.  

There is much to play for and much to be gained. Stasis is a wasting asset. But Sunak needs to be at the starting gate, and until he gets back from Sharm-el-Sheikh and signs off on the Autumn Statement, the DUP and its glum leadership will just have to wait their turn. 

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