Thursday 16 March 2023

The DUP are about to find out the cost of Brexit

I have learned over the years not to listen to the chancellor's budget speech since it's usually a performative smoke and mirrors thing and you only get to the truth after a few days. So, yesterday's antics in the Commons are for another day. In the background however, the Windsor Framework continues to bubble away. DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has been in Washington this week where he addressed The National Press Club. He set out his party’s ‘fundamental’ issues with the Windsor Framework. At the same time, The European Scrutiny Committee headed by another knight of the realm, Sir Bill Cash is expressing disappointment that Rishi Sunak is refusing to appear in front of it. 

They are calling on Sunak not to allow a meeting of the Withdrawal Agreement Joint Committee to finalise the WF before MPs have been able to scrutinise and vote on it.  Cash wants more time although he was more than happy to guillotine the debate in 2019! 

Cash said, "We were put into a sticky situation by the sequencing of negotiations during the original Withdrawal Agreement talks. Our overwhelming desire is to come by the best outcome for Northern Ireland that does not imperil the Union.

"Parliament should not be railroaded into a deal that it has not had sufficient time to come to an educated choice over whether to proceed or renegotiate, which will be unlikely to happen if the Government were to rush ahead particularly if the EU wishes to do so."

"MPs in the House must have a meaningful chance at input before this happens."

None of this is helpful to Sunak. 

Donaldson told the Washington Press Club:

"The Windsor Framework does not deal with some of the fundamental problems at the heart of our current difficulties."

“It is my current assessment that there remain key areas of concern which require further clarification, re-working and change as well as seeing further legal text.

"A key flaw in trying to proceed with the unworkable NI Protocol was the absolute disregard for unionist objections. Northern Ireland has never made progress if one side is trying to ride roughshod over the views of the other side. Mutual respect is the only route forward."

The clock is ticking. Joe Biden and Bill Clinton have already announced they intend to visit Northern Ireland next month to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on the 10th of April.

The framework is supported overwhelmingly by the nationalist catholic community which almost automatically means unionists can’t.  About 97% of nationalists support the deal compared to just 38% of unionists. Overall, two-thirds of voters in NI support it.

Time is running out for the DUP to make a decision.

The EU Council intends to vote on the new agreement on 21 March, next Tuesday, while MPs in Westminster have been promised a vote before the end of the month. The DUP has been told the deal is as good as it’s going to get. MEPs in the European parliament voted yesterday and approved the WF by 537 to 43, calling on the UK Government to end the unilateral ‘grace periods.’ The rapporteur responsible said the WF was ".. an important step in the right direction, and we now expect its full implementation." 

And at Westminster, the ERG's 'legal audit' of the WF is due next Wednesday according to The Telegraph's Chris Hope: 

The DUP is not going to be rushed and have a consultation panel looking at the deal which may not report until April. So, the whole vexed issue of how to resolve the so-called Irish trilemma is either going to find a resolution in the next couple of weeks or the whole thing will be thrown up in the air again.

Donaldson’s problem is that if he accepts, a de facto Irish sea border becomes the norm, weakening ties to GB and risks bringing Irish unity a step closer. He would go down in loyalist history as the man who betrayed them. His party will almost certainly split between hard-liners and the more pragmatic.

If he refuses, the DUP will be in the odd position of having voted for Brexit only to reject May’s, Johnson’s and now Sunak’s solution to the border problem. They would prefer it to be on the 310 km long land border but unfortunately for them, nobody else does. The UK government doesn’t, the Irish government certainly doesn’t, and the US and the EU don’t. Most people in the north and south don’t. 

There is zero chance of the EU making any more significant concessions, and the government may go over the heads of the DUP and allow Stormont to sit without the party and its twenty-five or so MLAs giving Sinn Fein a clear majority.

Talks are going on now in the background with the UK government to try and placate the DUP leadership with reassurances about the precise details of the border checks and how the Stormont brake will operate in practice.  Personally, I can't see the WF will ever be much more acceptable to the DUP than the NIP was - or indeed the Good Friday Agreement.

It also perhaps presents Sunak with a bigger problem. We are surely at the end of the road. If the DUP won’t move and the EU won’t either, it may be that the UK will have to contemplate a softer Brexit, something that Sunak might find difficult to argue against after claiming that:

"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."

If it's so good why deny it to the rest of the UK? By aligning with EU rules the whole border issue would disappear 'just like that.'  It would be popular with voters and with British industry and would boost the economy just when it's needed the most.  The only thing stopping him is the ERG's reaction.

Sinn Fein is running an advertising campaign in US newspapers calling for a border poll. Donaldson says the nationalist party is “drumming up hundreds of thousands of dollars” for these adverts — a move he referred to as “divisive”. The ads, which appeared this week in the New York Times and the Washington Post, call for support for a referendum on Irish unity as the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches.

I am not sure this is a good idea apart from gauging support for unification. Recent polls suggest there is nowhere near a majority at the moment.  While there is little chance of a border poll succeeding, it is a highly provocative move at a delicate moment in the troubled history of the province.

Unionists might also be concerned that even without the original NIP being fully implemented, supply chains have already been reconfigured and the process is still ongoing. Customers in the north are increasingly looking to suppliers in the south because of the potential paperwork issues.

Jim Allister, leader of the hard-line unionists tweeted:

Considering Brexiteers dismissed as scaremongering any idea that the Irish border would be a problem if we left the EU, the repercussions are still being felt, not as a peripheral matter, but at the very front and center of Brexit. 

The DUP and the ERG are finally coming face to face with the price of Brexit. In the next few days, we will find out if they’re prepared to pay it.

Polling

Just a quick note to point out that DeltaPoll has joined five other pollsters and published the results of the 259th survey asking if the UK was right or wrong to vote to leave the EU. Their answer is the same as all the others, 62% think it was WRONG while just 38% think it was right.

The chart now looks like this:



There is clear water between the two sides.  Good, isn't it?

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