Rishi Sunak’s position as prime minister depends on a Conservative parliamentary majority won by Boris Johnson on the basis of three words: “Get Brexit done”. Mr Johnson honoured the pledge in the narrow technical sense of completing Britain’s legal withdrawal from the EU. But in no other meaning of the words was Brexit done. Northern Ireland’s main unionist party rejected the deal before it was signed, and hardline Tory Eurosceptics quickly joined them in denouncing a treaty that they had recently hailed as a triumph.
Mr Johnson’s model affronted unionists with customs checks in the Irish Sea – a condition of Northern Ireland’s special status within the EU single market. The same economic privilege (bestowed in order to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland) gives the European court of justice a remit in the region. For militant Brexiters, that is a portion of UK sovereignty held hostage in Brussels.
Mr Sunak’s approach to these issues, in contrast to his predecessors, has been de-dramatisation. Diplomacy works, and the outline of a deal is coming into view. The EU will ease technical enforcement of customs rules for a smoother flow of goods across the Irish Sea. The UK will concede that, ultimately, a European court adjudicates on European rules wherever they apply, including Northern Ireland. That is the foundation of a sensible compromise, and as such will meet opposition from fanatics for whom any compromise with Brussels is anathema. Labour has offered parliamentary support for a reformed protocol, but reliance on opposition votes would be a humiliation for Mr Sunak, whose authority is hardly robust as it is.
Even if the problems in Northern Ireland can be mitigated, Brexit is not done. Fixing the protocol is a necessary precondition to putting relations on a more functional footing, but not sufficient to restore trust. There is the parallel problem of the retained EU law bill, currently making its way through parliament. As drafted, the bill would see swathes of former European rules automatically expunged from the statute book, threatening mayhem in the regulatory framework on which post-Brexit trade is based. But that is the point – a scorched-earth flight from European markets to make even modest movement back to integration impossible.
That is not Mr Sunak’s stated plan, but he dare not repudiate it for fear of riling the hardliners in his party. That is a handicap in a range of future negotiations. The post-Brexit horizon is littered with deadlines and expiring transitional arrangements in various sectors – customs, fisheries, financial services, chemicals, safety standards, energy sharing, “rules of origin” for electric vehicles and more – culminating in a formal review of the entire trade and cooperation agreement in 2025.
By that point, Britain will have had a general election and Brexit will still not be done. Brexit will never be done, because the relationship with Europe is a process of constant negotiation, the terms of which are determined by strategic interests, history, economics and geography. Treaties can describe degrees of political closeness or distance, but they cannot alter the duty of a British prime minister to build trusting alliances with the nation’s nearest neighbours. There will, by necessity, one day be a prime minister who is capable of that task. It wasn’t Mr Johnson or Liz Truss. Nor, it seems, is it likely to be Mr Sunak.
