The final few weeks of Rishi Sunak’s attempts to finally get Brexit done were characterised by extreme caution. Unlike the many previous attempts to get deals with Brussels over the line, those in the know remained tight-lipped.
Officials and ministers would only say that talks between the two sides on the Northern Ireland protocol were still a “scoping exercise”. They wouldn’t even admit whether the “tunnel”, the highly secretive talks that take place just before a deal is struck, existed.
The stakes for Sunak couldn’t have been higher. Here was an opportunity to start restoring relations with the EU, to show that he could get a grip on a seemingly ungovernable Conservative party, and to avoid going into the next election still dogged by splits on Brexit.
But, as several Tory prime ministers have discovered to their cost, Brexit and the Conservatives are a combustible combination, and the UK’s long and turbulent history with Brussels has a habit of grinding down leaders. Despite all the progress that has been made in recent weeks, it is no surprise that there were plenty of jitters in Downing Street that it could all still go wrong.
Which makes it all the more remarkable that – three years after Boris Johnson agreed the “oven-ready Brexit deal” with Brussels that caused all the problems on the ground in Northern Ireland – Sunak appears to have pulled off what many regarded as impossible, by finally fixing it.
But getting his Windsor framework over the line with the European Commission was only ever going to be half the battle. With his technocratic, evidence-led approach to negotiations mirroring the usual way of doing things in Brussels, sealing the protocol deal was the easy part.
Ursula von der Leyen, the commission’s president, was clear that Sunak was somebody she could do business with – in stark contrast to Johnson, who took a more belligerent approach. “There was a very constructive attitude from the very beginning, to solve problems, to find solutions,” she told reporters.
But where previous Brexit deals have got into trouble was when they reached the Tory party. Sunak took the decision to face down the European Research Group of backbench Eurosceptic Tories, and hope that the rest of his MPs saw that the public was fed up with internal Tory warfare.
He tied in key Brexiters from the beginning, keeping Chris Heaton-Harris, Liz Truss’s Northern Ireland secretary, in post to give him a stake in the talks. His deputy, Steve Baker – the self-declared hard man of Brexit – admitted he had been willing to quit over the deal, but then read the documents. It was now time to “turn the page” on the protocol and “move on to the next chapter”, he said.
The prime minister launched a charm offensive to persuade other influential Tory Brexiters to do just that, inviting the likes of David Davis, who quit as Brexit secretary over Theresa May’s compromise deal, in for talks. Davis later said his instinct was to support the agreement, and that he expected any rebellion would be limited.
What they, and other Brexiter Tories, appear to have concluded is that the country wants to move on. During the Brexit wars of 2019, which ultimately brought down Theresa May, two-thirds of UK voters felt that leaving the EU was the most important issue facing the country. That figure now hovers between 15% and 20%.
Sunak has gambled on enough Conservative MPs recognising that continued wrangling over Brexit in the runup to the next election would be electoral suicide – and that his deal is better than the alternatives.
It looks as if he has, at the very least, staved off a big rebellion, a huge shift from last week when there were warnings that as many as 100 Tory MPs could vote against the agreement. Parliament is expected to be given a vote – but not this week, so that MPs have time to go through the legal text.
Tory whips are hopeful that the rebellion can be limited to two dozen irreconcilables, meaning the deal could pass without the government having to rely on Labour votes. Some in the government claim there may even be electoral benefits to Sunak looking as if he’s not afraid to take on the hardcore Brexiters in his party.
Sunak also appears to have neutralised Johnson as a destabilising force for his government over Brexit – dumping the former prime minister’s Northern Ireland protocol bill now it is no longer needed as a bargaining chip. “Neither do we need the bill and nor do we have a credible basis to pursue it,” he told MPs. Johnson has – so far – been uncharacteristically silent.
But Sunak still has a problem with the Democratic Unionist party. He doesn’t need them to back his deal, but he does need them not to slam the door on it. If the primary point of the deal is to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland, a failure to get Stormont back up and running again soon would be a major blow.
Despite some grumbling from the more hardline element in the DUP, there are optimistic early signs. The DUP leader, Jeffrey Donaldson, accepted that “significant progress” had been made – despite some concerns around the enduring role of EU law.
There was also criticism over the involvement of the king – who, on the advice of the government, accepted an invitation to meet Von der Leyen after she and Sunak announced the deal – with senior DUP figures accusing the government of being “tone-deaf”.
Unusually, the government’s deal has won the backing of the main UK opposition parties – although they do point out that much economic and political pain could have been avoided if Sunak’s predecessors had taken a different tack. They will now go away and study the detail of the deal. The prime minister should take the win.
