Sunak and the EU: the love comeback of the decade?

What a day it’s been for Rishi Sunak criss-crossing the Irish Sea in the hope of selling his new post-Brexit trade deal to all the rival factions on both sides of the water.

Tonight he is back in Westminster talking privately to Conservative backbenchers at a special 1922 committee meeting after having travelled to Belfast earlier in the day where he hoped to convince the people of Northern Ireland that his Windsor Framework deal will turn their region into “the world’s most exciting economic zone.”

Sunak made the whistle-stop tour to Northern Ireland to meet leaders of the main political parties to pitch the Windsor deal – which aims to ease the flow of trade between Britain, Northern Ireland and Ireland – as the best of both worlds for those in the province. He told them they will be in the “very special position” of having “privileged” access to both UK and EU markets, benefitting from the single market as well as more free-flowing trade from the UK. It’s a comment which triggered much mirth, suggesting the PM would like to rejoin the single market. See the Hound.

But is everybody convinced? The Windsor solution still needs to pass through parliament but so far, reaction to Sunak’s new deal has been broadly positive. While the more hardline ERG group of MPs are meeting this evening to agree on their response, some members, such as Brexit hardman Steve Baker, fully support the deal and have already hailed it as a game-changer. Labour has also given it full support. 

However, the PM has yet to win over the DUP, Northern Ireland’s largest unionist party. It’s the DUP’s support which will be key to ending the bitter stalemate in Stormont, the devolved assembly of Northern Ireland. The country has not had a sitting parliament since February 2022, when the DUP removed itself from the power-sharing agreement between unionist and nationalist parties over its opposition to the former Northern Ireland Protocol. 

Sinn Féin, the Republican – and largest – party in the Assembly, has welcomed the deal and urged the DUP to return to devolved government. But the DUP says it won’t pass a verdict until has pored over the fine details.  

So far, Jeffrey Donaldson, the party’s leader, is cautiously optimistic. Although “issues remain”, he acknowledged the deal has made “significant progress” in addressing protocol tensions that led to the DUP’s boycott. 

If implemented, the new arrangement would make it easier and cheaper to trade across the Irish Sea. Goods arriving in Northern Ireland from the UK would only require a simple digital declaration as opposed to existing lengthy paperwork. The deal would also re-write parts of the Protocol to allow Westminster to set VAT rates in Northern Ireland.

But an important aspect of the deal which the DUP is now studying in detail is the “Stormont brake,” the key clause aimed at resolving the major objection of the unionists about being governed by EU law. 

Theoretically, this clause would allow Stormont to stop new EU single market rules from applying in NI, if it considers them damaging to the region. If the ‘brake’ is ‘pulled’ by at least 30 members of the assembly comprised from at least two parties, the UK would be able to veto the law.

How it will work in practice is less clear. Notably, the block could be challenged by Brussels through arbitration. EU officials have also said this mechanism is only to be triggered as a “last resort” in “exceptional circumstances.”

Any final decision from the DUP will require the approval of 12 party officers. While the Windsor Framework would mean that only 3% of EU laws would be implemented in Northern Ireland, some of the party’s hardliners say this is still too much. Ian Paisley, the party’s North Antrim MP, whose late father founded the DUP, says his “gut instinct is that [the deal] doesn’t cut the mustard, we’re not there,” warning that “the European Court of Justice will still be the final arbitrator.”

Yet rejecting a deal which could bring six years of rancour to an end is high stakes. The reality of Brexit and sharing a land border with Ireland means that Northern Ireland is always going to have a different relationship with Brussels to the rest of Great Britain. If this revised deal is eventually rejected, Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Taoiseach, has warned that re-entering negotiations with the EU could be very tricky. 

When it comes to achieving a balance that works for both nationalists and the unionists, those backing the Windsor agreement insist this is as good as it’s going to get. One German newspaper has described the deal as “the love comeback of the decade.” We shall see. 

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