Today in Westminster they're debating the so-called Stormont brake, though probably more MPs will be paying attention to Boris Johnson ducking and diving at the Commons Privileges Committee. Their time will be better spent watching Johnson because the Stormont brake is a done deal though it doesn't do what Sunak claims it will do.
People have claimed the timing of the debate is deliberately designed to be overshadowed by Johnson's 'greased piglet' performance, but no, it's designed to coincide with the EU adopting the deal yesterday.
As part of his carefully worked reset with the EU Sunak is moving in lockstep with Brussels, where people are just as anxious as he is to heal the wounds Johnson and the ERG inflicted on relations.
The Stormont brake is unamendable as is the whole deal sealed at Windsor. It will pass today because Conservative MPs are delighted with Sunak's result so that at last they can breathe a sigh of relief and end Johnson's 'forever war' with Brussels.
As for the 'brake' itself, the idea that it can instantly halt EU legislation is a chimera. Furthermore, although Sunak and our nodding dog proconsul sell it as a device to 'veto' EU law and exclude the jurisdiction of their dreaded European Court of Justice, in fact it is nothing of the kind; nor does it do anything to affect the ECJ's jurisdiction in interpreting EU law as it applies in the north.
The language is symbolic rather than practical. It's all smoke and mirrors that has failed to hoodwink the ERG wingnuts and their DUP dupes: beaten dockets now.
For the ERG's fanatical Europhobes UK sovereignty, not trade, is the key trigger of their neuralgia so they need to be satisfied the ECJ has no role in any part of the UK. That's why at Windsor Sunak talked balderdash about 'restoring sovereignty' to the north, a power, function or competence the north never possessed to lose.
What Sunak was doing was playing to the ERG, claiming that sovereignty had been regained over all of the UK including the part which it had lost to the EU. That wasn't true either because the EU never had it, but Brussels is content to let Sunak spin the deal as he likes as long as he adheres to its operation, that's the essential: and he will.
As for the operation of the 'brake', the fact is that it's well nigh impossible to work and is designed to be so. As the estimable Newton Emerson of this parish pointed out last week, people here making stuff and selling it to the EU will happily diverge from UK standards if that's what they need to do in order to do business.
In fact UK manufacturers will also do the same. If you're selling something it has to be attractive to your customers. You're not going to be able to compete if you're trying to sell a sub-standard product.
In order to pull the brake 30 MLAs from two or more parties have to demonstrate a significant impact specific to "the everyday life of communities in Northern Ireland in a way that is liable to persist". How do you define any of that? Note the use of 'communities'. As a minority in Stormont (which must be fully up and running to invoke the brake) unionists won't therefore be able to fulfil this condition.
Those wishing to operate the brake can only do so in the "most exceptional circumstances and as a last resort, having used every other available mechanism". They must also show they've consulted businesses and civic society and then the UK government must agree all this has happened. Finally, if the ECJ doesn't agree then the EU can take retaliatory measures.
All this unworkable legalistic paraphernalia has been constructed to placate unionists. The word nationalist is never uttered which raises the obvious question: what about rigorous impartiality?
