Brexit: a fight to the death

By Richard North - February 26, 2023

Although there has been a great deal of media chatter on the possibility of an all-new, “washes whiter” Northern Ireland Protocol (NIP), the one thing that has ruled out any intelligent analysis is that irritatingly small detail – the absence of any new draft.

In many ways, this is a reversion to the bad old days, where treaty negotiations have once again become hole in-the-corner stuff, to be decided upon by our masters without the participation or knowledge of the plebs (or even parliament), to be revealed to the great unwashed after they have been agreed by our betters.

Those with longer memories might remember the days of the first Maastricht Treaty debates in parliament, when an official, English language version of the consolidated treaty had not been published at the time MPs were asked to approve it.

This is certainly a change from the practice adopted during the Brexit process when – largely at the insistence of the Commission – the negotiations were to a great extent open to public scrutiny, with multiple drafts of treaties being published before final agreement was reached.

Perhaps with the sensitivity of the issues raised by the Northern Ireland Protocol, the technocratic Sunak – the latest prime minister to bend himself to the wheel of Brexit – feels his interests are best served by maintaining a veil of secrecy. Without this, he probably feels, a draft could never be finalised.

That, however, is not necessarily a stratagem that will succeed in producing a new agreement. All it does is get us to the stage where the draft is rejected after it has been finalised, rather than allowing for multiple rejections as the text emerges.

The end result, though, could well be the same. The only difference might be that we are saved the interminable debates on the preliminary drafts, before final defeat is conceded.

Then, I should imagine, we will see the parties withdraw to their respective lairs to lick their wounds, ready to start the process all over again – the closest thing to political perpetual motion since the settlement of the Schleswig–Holstein question.

The British statesman Lord Palmerston is reported to have said: “Only three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein business – the Prince Consort, who is dead – a German professor, who has gone mad – and I, who have forgotten all about it”.

As far as the technicalities go, there would probably be about as much current interest in the NIP as there was in the Schleswig–Holstein question. But what is keeping the show on the road is the behaviour of failed prime minister Johnson and his ERG cohort, who are threatening to rebel against any new deal and bring down Sunak in the process.

It is this prospect which is turning the negotiations into a soap opera, keeping the political pygmies entertained with an eternal diet of “Tory splits”, back-bench rebellions and ministerial resignations.

The soap opera has been enlivened by Johnson who, in full destructive mode, is arguing for a Bill he introduced when prime minister, which would afford the government powers unilaterally to suspend aspects of the protocol “in an emergency” – notwithstanding that the agreement already includes such provisions.

We are also informed that the Oaf is acting very much in character. In what is styled an “extraordinary confrontation in the Commons chamber with his former lord chancellor, Sir Robert Buckland”, it seems that Buckland had arguing that abandoning the Bill was necessary to cement relations with President Joe Biden. In a move which is said to have “startled MPs”, Johnson was overheard replying: “F*** the Americans!”.

Having already decided to “F*** business”, and put in place measures to implement the thought, Johnson now seems ready to mount a scorched earth rampage, ready to destroy what’s left of the Conservative Party.

Whether wise or not, Sunak seems to have little option but to make this the defining battle of his premiership. Showing up the inadequacies of his predecessor once removed, he is said to be taking on the Eurosceptics in his party, in his biggest leadership test to date.

By insisting on a new deal for Northern Ireland, which he claims is close to agreement with the EU, he evidently has ambitions of taking on the mantle of the man who made getting Brexit “done” a reality, finally vanquishing his challenger and exorcising his looming presence from the back-benches.

As to the latest state of play, after a week of comings and goings of exquisite tedium, we are warned to expect that Sunak will unveil his deal “as early as Monday”.

In what could be taken as a principled stand, where he courageously attempts to stamp his authority on a fractious party, or a suicidal manoeuvre akin to a Kamikaze attack in a Bleriot monoplane, Sunak apparently intends to table his draft “with or without” the explicit endorsement of the Democratic Unionist Party.

This leaves the treacherous Johnson, and his allies, to warn that the agreement risks “civil war”, once again undermining a prime minister, in much the same way he did for Theresa May.

Sunak, however – unwittingly adding fuel to the fire – says that the proposed (but as yet unseen) deal is not a threat to Brexit but about “making sure that Brexit works in every part of the United Kingdom”. That in itself is sufficient to attract the eternal enmity of Johnson who could hardly bear the shame of being upstaged by his successor.

As a born-again Brexiteer, Sunak is talking up his credentials, asserting that, “As someone who believes in Brexit, voted for Brexit, campaigned for Brexit, I want to demonstrate that Brexit works and it works for every part of the United Kingdom”.

The funny thing is that, despite being fairly heavily engaged in the referendum campaign, I do not recall the presence of Sunak in the fight and, in the millions of words I wrote on the subject over several years, I do not recall once writing about him.

Nevertheless, our latter-day Brexit hero seems keen to take on Johnson, declaring: “I think everyone recognises and should recognise that this is not … about me, this is not about third parties or anyone else”. It is, he says, “about the people and communities of Northern Ireland …what’s best for them”.

Of course it is.

However, there is something of a side controversy, where Sunak was attempting to get Charlie Boy to meet Ursula von der Leyen. She had been due to travel to Britain to announce the agreement with Sunak before meeting the King for tea at Windsor Palace, whence the idea was hatched to call the deal “the Windsor Agreement”.

This left a scandalised Jacob Rees-Mogg – who was not fazed by the idea of breaching international treaties in a very “specific and limited way” – to complain: “If there were a plan to bring the King in before there is domestic political agreement, it would border on constitutional impropriety”.

While the ERG hard-liners appear to be flexing their muscles, possibly with the idea of deposing Sunak and returning the King-over-the-water to office, the Remainer tendency is also embracing the opportunity to take on the Tory crazies, not only settling the Northern Ireland issue but allowing Sunak to deal a devastating blow to his challengers.

This is very much up in the air, with Matthew Parris writing that “the bad guys in his party could still wreck his government in revenge”. But, he says, “if a party within his own party are batshit-crazy enough to try to destroy their own prime minister over this, then better to take them on now, on an issue where the whole world (minus the DUP) will be on his side, than to blink, duck and carry on for a few more wretched months before the ERG’s next attack”.

In Parris’s view, if Sunak can bring his critics to heel, “he could lead his government towards the next election as a beleaguered but determined and decisive prime minister”.

Winning that election is not the likelihood, he asserts, “but in defeat, for both Sunak and Conservatism, there’s an incalculable difference between their party’s present ignominy and pulling together to run a surprisingly strong last lap in government”.

Significantly, in his article, there is no mention of the details of any amended protocol and no discussion of the benefits to Northern Ireland of streamlined trading systems.

Sunak might protest that this is all “about the people and communities of Northern Ireland …what’s best for them”, but it’s really about the internal politics of the Conservative Party, and its future leadership. But this contest is not for the faint-hearted. It is a fight to the death.