LAST UPDATE | 28 Feb 2023
ACCORDING TO MARK Twain, history does not repeat itself but often rhymes. Of course, Twain did not live through Brexit, where the DJ might change, but the tune stays the same, whether it is requested or not.
Enter the next hopeful to turn the decks, Britain’s latest prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
For just over a week, there was growing speculation that a deal to improve the implementation of the Northern Ireland Protocol had been agreed upon between the UK and the EU.
Official level negotiations have given way to political exchanges, and yesterday, Sunak had one final meeting with EU Commission President, Ursula von der Leyen, before the two of them announced that the Windsor Framework had been reached, and she drove off for tea with Britain’s new King, Charles III. The deal was done; the King, simply icing on the cake.
For the first time in a long time, there is a sense that genuine progress has been made on the Protocol. Sunak woke up this morning to positive headlines from all the UK’s major newspapers, and he has earned the right to be cautiously optimistic. However, progress is in the eye of the beholder, and as always, the real negotiations for the UK’s Prime Minister are not with the EU, but with his own party and the DUP.
As reports of a deal emerged last week, hardline Brexiters wasted no time in penning opinion pieces for The Daily Telegraph and securing television interviews to restate their impossible demands – that the Protocol be rewritten, that no EU law apply in Northern Ireland, that the European Court of Justice have no role in adjudicating on the application of single market rules.
The implication of these interventions was clear; whatever deal Sunak secures may be rejected, since no achievable deal can be compatible with these demands.
Meanwhile, the DUP have their own tests, all seven of which they claim must be met if they are to lend their support to Sunak’s deal. The bar they have set is also impossibly high, and they are currently keeping their counsel.
Sunak rightly wants to move beyond endless arguments regarding the movement of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, but the political challenges he faces are all too familiar. Many in his party have no real interest in pragmatism anymore, preferring ideological Brexit purity instead. This is an appetite that cannot be satisfied but can be stoked, and Boris Johnson sits in the wings waiting to do just that.
Meanwhile, the DUP have backed themselves into a corner, where anything short of Sunak scrapping the Protocol leaves them open to accusations that they have failed to deliver for the community that they represent.
If Sunak is to succeed, he needs to persuade his unpersuadable MPs of the merits of his deal, or, perhaps more importantly, secure DUP support, which would remove the political cover that their opposition provides the ERG for their intransigence.
Neither outcome seems easy, which leaves Sunak with just one other option – face down opponents within his own party and deliver his deal with the support of the opposition. If it feels like we have been here before, it is because we have, when Theresa May tried and failed, to get her deal through Parliament by courting the support of the Labour Party in 2019.
What is different this time, is that Labour have committed themselves to support Sunak’s deal, guaranteeing the Prime Minister a Parliamentary victory when the Windsor Framework is taken to MPs for a vote.
However, victory without the support of the DUP, or in the face of serious opposition from his own party, will leave Sunak considerably weaker, with the likely consequence being that he suffers the same fate as May.
Sunak’s task is unenviable. If he succeeds, it would be an extraordinary achievement for a PM who remains inexperienced and has appeared, until now, to lack the political nouse or authority to lead effectively. Fail and it will be further confirmation that when it comes to Brexit there is no rhyme, just a life lived on repeat.
Sydney Nash is a former civil servant and UK/EU negotiator, and a former advisor to the automotive sector on Brexit and international trade. He writes in a personal capacity and can be found @NashSGC.
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