At the press conference to announce the new Brexit compromise, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, addressed British Prime Minister Sunak several times as “dear Rishi, pronounced grischi, as if in French, some say that with sparkles in her eyes, other than with the condescending tone of a severe school principal who hands out an award in public to an outstanding student. No chance that the Conservative leader would be so fondly treated and treated with such high regard during his visit to Belfast yesterday to start selling the deal.
Sunak does not need the approval of the DUP (the main unionist party and the second most voted in Ulster after Sinn Fein) for his pact with Brussels to be endorsed in the House of Commons, but he does need it for the autonomous government to function again of the province, which has been suspended for a year due to the protest of that unionist group against the existence of a virtual and invisible border in the North Sea.
But the DUP told Sunak yesterday that he can sit around, days or weeks, however long it takes for his lawyers to scrutinize the fine print of the Windsor Agreement, and until a special party caucus makes its decision, thumbs up. or down like the Roman emperors in the circus. If not, Northern Ireland politics will continue to remain in limbo, the celebrations of the 25th anniversary of Good Friday will be diluted, and they will not have the shine that the presence of the American president, Joe Biden, would give them. All a bit disappointing, rather a disappointment.
The general reaction to the pact negotiated by Sunak has been very favorable. The press, the business world and the majority of public opinion interpret this as an achievement, and the premier is being hailed as a pragmatic leader who has restored common sense to British politics, established a good personal relationship with von der Leyen and regained the confidence in Brussels that Johnson and Truss had lost. Yesterday in Belfast several parties (Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance) expressed their support for the plan.
Not so the unionists. The two main ones (DUP and UUP, slightly more moderate but without going too far) said that they need time to think about it, while the smallest TUV gave a resounding no. “It is clear that there is still a border in the North Sea, that the province remains within the single market and subject to EU law, and that the European Court of Justice continues to have jurisdiction. That is not having sovereignty, and therefore unacceptable”, proclaimed its leader Jim Allister.
The DUP is not so clear, whose opinion is the important one because it is the one that holds the key to the resumption of the autonomous government (the presence of the main unionist and nationalist party is required by the Good Friday Agreements). Its leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, has commented that the Sunak pact is “significant progress but gaps remain.” Within the formation there are several currents with varying degrees of intransigence, which emphasize commercial benefits or sovereignty.
Sunak intends to persuade the unionists with the so-called “Stormont brake”, which he sells as a veto of the Assembly of the province to any new law that the EU intends to apply in Northern Ireland. But, reading the fine print, it turns out that it is a more theoretical mechanism than anything else, reserved for exceptional circumstances and very complicated to apply. Of veto, in fact, very little. Rather a warning or alert that would go to the British Government to decide whether or not to block the legislation. And in any case the EU would have the right to appeal and resort to an arbitration court. As for customs controls on products destined for Ulster, there is a reduction but they are not completely abolished, far from it.
What the most recalcitrant unionists and eurosceptics do not accept is that European regulations apply to Northern Ireland, but this is inevitable if it is part of the single market. “The deal is phenomenal for the Northern Irish, who thus enjoy privileged access to two markets, the UK domestic and the European one,” said Sunak.
Soon he had to rectify, because it was like admitting that Brexit was a mistake. That luxury is what the whole country enjoyed before slamming the door on Europe.
