Sunak has, as everyone expected, got a deal on Northern Ireland.
Let me not be churlish. It is a better deal than I expected. He deserved his moment of sounding almost prime ministerial in the Commons last night. Mark Francois on his own backbench and Sammy Wilson from the DUP might have rattled their swords but the deal is smart.
That is most especially so when it comes to the so-called Stormont Brake. This suggests that new EU laws will nit apply in Northern Ireland if 30 Stormont members vote against it doing so. But there are conditions. First, the thirty must come from two parties. The DUP cannot act alone. Second, Stormont must be sitting. The DUP can no longer avoid democracy in Northern Ireland. At least they can't if they want to influence the application of EU law there.
This leaves the DUP with a neatly created problem. They have not ended the role of the European Court of Justice in Northern Ireland, as they demanded. It does remain, albeit it is going to be rare that it is ever called upon. So a DUP red line has not been met.
And by requiring that the DUP return the deal will force them to admit that they are now very much the junior party in Stormont, and on an almost inevitable declining trend given the demographic nature of politics there.
What is more, the DUP to make this work has to cooperate, which has never been one of its strengths.
And then, and only then, can it try to block the EU, which it has in principle enough seats in Stormont to do, but which block it can only in reality use on a quite limited range of issues.
We may never know who out-manoeuvred the DUP here. And, of course, the DUP might simply decide not to play ball still. But whoever thought this up was clever. Because if the DUP say no now to a deal that is very obviously in Northern Ireland's best interests then they signal their own irrelevance that can only hasten their decline and the move of more in the Protestant community towards non-aligned parties.
The DUP is between a rock and a very hard place this morning. This is a long way from the cosy deal Theresa May was forced to make with them.
So, Sunak may well have made political as well as practical progress here with a deal that emulates the Good Friday Agreement by letting many people project onto it what they wish. I did not expect that, and acknowledge it.
What is more, this deal has the added advantage of making it clear by how much Boris Johnson and David Frost got this wrong. All Sunak's self aggrandisement about his achievement in a thirty minute Despatch Box performance last night was about noting the catastrophic errors of a previous Tory government in which he was a senior minister, but by saying what he did he made Johnson look as incompetent and negligent as he really was.
But let us never forget in all this that staying in the EU would have been so much better for everyone. This is still a second-rate deal. Nothing avoids that fact. Sunak did well, but the real issue of the biggest mistake made remains unaddressed by the terrible political alignment between Labour and the Tories that will one day be forced to address it.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
The people of Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and for the Union, and are in both. The people of both England and Wales voted for Brexit and both are out of the EU. The people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland are in the Unions they choose to be in.
The people of Scotland are the only ones in Britain who aren’t in a Union they voted for. Their mistake? They believed the Conservatives. Scotland would bite your hand off for a deal like Northern Ireland’s. The Scots need to figure out just how bad their political situation has become in this Union.
I surmise the UK Government, given recent exploitative success using the ploy, will increase its resort to blocking new Holyrood legislation, by speculative reference to UK legislation, whether it would ever have any substance in the Courts; because politically it has enormous disruptive, exploitative potential for any Scottish Government it doesn’t like, at little UK financial or, especially political cost. It a ‘win, win’ in our dysfunctional constitution.
Deal for Northern Ireland. What about Scotland? “Get back in your box, and shut up”.
As Stephen Flynn said in the Commons in a very good speech last night
He is a very good orator
The people of Northern Ireland voted against Brexit and for the Union, and are in both Unions they voted for. The people of both England and Wales voted for Brexit and both are thus out of the EU. The people of England, Wales and Northern Ireland are therefore in the Unions they choose to be in.
The people of Scotland are the only ones in Britain who aren’t in a Union they voted for. Their mistake? They believed the Conservatives. Scotland would bite your hand off for a deal like Northern Ireland’s.
I surmise the UK Government, given recent exploitative success using the ploy, will increase its resort to blocking new Holyrood legislation, by speculative reference to UK legislation, whether it would ever have any substance in the Courts; because politically it has enormous disruptive, exploitative potential against any Scottish Government it doesn’t like, at little UK financial or, especially political cost. It is a ‘win, win’ for the Union in our dysfunctional, divisive constitution.
The Scots need to figure out just how bad their situation has become in this Union.
I think that is clearer than my first draft!
I turned your opening comments into a tweet
Absolutely spot-on, John.
You wrote “The Scots need to figure out just how bad their situation has become in this Union.” This will be harder to achieve than it should be: there is virtually no media support for independence in Scotland, so getting the message out to the populace is difficult-to-impossible when TV companies increasingly tailor their political output to match that of the predominantly right-wing pro-Union UK press. In addition, the Union we find ourselves in inhibits democracy by clinging on to FPTP and by failing to have a written constitution. The outcome, as we have had demonstrated to us time and again, is that Scotland cannot have its voice heard in Westminster and Westminster can simply over-rule not just the democratic political decisions of Holyrood, but Scots Law itself. We are indeed in an undemocratic trap since the Scotland Act was passed (as has been apparent to those who bothered to read it).
Clearly then, as long as that Westminster status quo remains, Scotland’s position/plight will be unchanged. To alter that will therefore require radical change: if there’s no gain for Scotland to send MPs to Westminster, why continue to do so? If there’s c50% public support for independence in Scotland, how best can enough of the other 50% be persuaded that being independent is the only way to escape from this undemocratic trap? My guess is that de-politicising the case for independence (making it clear that it’s not owned by just the SNP and Alba, but belongs to the whole nation) would help, but distribution of reliable data and statistics to the wider populace could be a hard nut to crack.
My main ray of hope in this impasse is that a sizeable majority of the Scottish people are in favour of the Holyrood Parliament despite the Tories’ efforts to limit its powers. Any attempt to shut it down and impose direct control from Westminster would be disastrous for the UK Union. That’s our ace-in-the-hole.
The DUP has been put in a difficult position, which is rather more astute of Sunak (or his team, or perhaps the EU team) than I expected.
As I understand it, the conditions for pulling the “emergency brake” are similar to those for a “petition of concern” requiring a cross-community vote on other Stormont matters. This is not just theoretical – the PoC has been used over 150 times, for matter such as same-sex marriage and abortion (neither of which sounds like they should be determined by attitudes to the Union, but there we are).
But to pull that brake:
* there needs to be notification by the UK government to the EU within two months of the publication of a specific Union act (with explanation of the concern)
* that new Union act must makes “significant” change in the content or scope of a pre-existing specific Union act that applies to Northern Ireland, and that change has “significant impact specific to everyday life of communities in Northern Ireland in a way that is liable to persist”
* any notification must be in respect of the “smallest severable element” of the specific Union act (not the whole thing)
* the brake can only be pulled if the Northern Ireland Executive has been restored and become operational, and the Assembly has been in regular session
* pulling the brake needs support from at least 30 MLAs from at least two parties (but could that be the DUP and the UUP?)
* the 30 MLAs will need to demonstrate, in a detailed and publicly available written explanation, that “the notification is only being made in the most exceptional circumstances and as a last resort, having used every other available mechanism”, that the other necessary conditions are met, and there has already been “prior substantive discussion with the UK Government and within the Northern Ireland Executive to examine all possibilities in relation to the Union act; taken steps to consult businesses, other traders and civic society affected by the relevant Union act; and made all reasonable use of applicable consultation processes provided by the European Union” (and all that before the two month period expires, although some of it could start when the EU change was first promised )
* notification is followed by “intensive consultations” to try to resolve the issue
It is going to be very interesting to see how the amended Northern Ireland Protocol – renamed the Windsor Framework – is going to work in practice.
Indeed
And thanks fore the extra detail
Back in the ‘nineties I spent some time teaching collaborative negotiation to diplomats. Bullies thrive using techniques of division and exclusion. The core trick is to offer a group – and it has to be a group – something serious that they can’t dismiss without an internal negotiation; and then make achieving that goal conditional on the group as a whole collaborating externally. Whoever advised on / designed this deal knew their stuff.
I have an idea that in the move toward PR, this is the building block. It’s a way of working that can be learned and applied; it scales; and it changes everything. Complex systems thinking emerges over time
A very fair analysis I must say.
But the Tories are being treated as victors in the press and media.
But really, no one seems to remember that the Tories have scored a victory against themselves!! Their own stupidity.
Let’s see if what the opinion polls have to say.
I think they will get a very small bounce
Most people know nothing of NI and I am afraid to say care less
Indeed, this deal won’t put a single tomato in the supermarkets of England, not lower the energy price. It solidifies Sunak as the man who will lead the Tories into the election, however, and undermines the path Johnson was hoping to get back into office through. It weakens the Brexiteers (Tice), and potentially marginalises the DUP. Most of that is welcome, but there won’t be a massive response from the public in the polls.
Agreed on the last
Rishi Sunak in Northern Ireland: “If we get this right, if we get this framework implemented, we get the executive back up and running, Northern Ireland is in the unbelievably special position, the unique position in the entire world in having privileged access not just to the UK home market, which is the fifth biggest in the world, but also the European Union single market.
Nobody else has that. No one – only you guys only here. And that is the prize.”.
Sunak is a Brexiter. He said what…..?
He must think we are all daft. Mr Sunak, even from this side of the Irish Sea …. we can still hear you!
Sunak is, we can now see a follower of Marx: “Those are my principles, and if you don’t like them… well, I have others.”
In hapless, daft Britain Sunak is now being reqwritten as a giant of negotiation, according to the drivel plugging Conservative media. A master of detail. No, he isn’t. that is not how it works. He did something very simple. He didn’t treat the EU as our enemy, but a real negotiation, with our friends and neighbours. It isn’t ‘rocket science’. May, Johnson and Truss would never work, because then the EU was our enemy. Why? Because if they weren’t painted as the enemy, why would you leave the EU?
Staggering gaff by Sunak
It isn’t really Sunak’s deal though, is it? People (civil servants) have been working on it for a couple of years. Well before Sunak.
But he had to deliver it
Fair point.