Simon UsherwoodSome thoughts ahead of this weekend's apparent unveiling of a deal on NI Protocol between UK and EU
Let's start with process
1/
Sunak has kept to his predecessors' approach of trying to keep very few people in the loop about talks: UK-EU and UK internal talks are highly separated until deals land and then selling goes overtime
Readers will recall how that went for May
2/
Didn't work in longer term for Johnson either: got him a deal, but one he and his besties now have to denounce
3/
Separating like this might make things easier at start, as you have fewer POVs to take into account, but deals have to be implemented, so you need buy-in to make things work on ground
4/
Sunak risks either a political stand-off from NI parties or his backbench or someone pointing out the practical difficulties
Neither of which will help in efforts to put things to bed
5/
Next up, content
This deal isn't going to "solve" Protocol issues, just reduce problems and open a path to more negotiations
6/
All indications are that deal will be within existing texts of WA and TCA, so this is about wiggle room, not recasting
(Note that wiggle room was always there, but UK positioned itself not to use that)
7/
That's not intrinsically a problem, but it does point up that Brexit is a process not an event: this no more "gets Brexit done" than did any previous deal
So expectation management is in order. Which would be easier if you'd taken people with you in the first place
8/
Overall, one of the reasons Brexit is such a difficult issue is that UK govt leadership has been rubbish at talking openly about the situation or options
I'd be very happy if this weekend brings progress, but also not surprised if someone has a big problem
9/
Of course, we don't have to wait on our leaders to have an open and thoughtful discussion about this, so perhaps we should just on with it ourselves
/end
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@susherwood We all know what the eventual "solution" is - a united Ireland was always an inevitable consequence of #brexshit.
Luke@TimWardCam @susherwood Together with some form of eventual return to the EU and a large helping of humble pie.