PRIME minister Rishi Sunak appears to have the votes to get his streamlined NI Protocol deal through Parliament, but for the Windsor Framework to have both credibility and durability it needs to win the support of all the Northern Ireland parties, and not just the DUP.
That in turn links the success of the EU-UK agreement to the revival of powersharing at Stormont, which the DUP has already boycotted for more than a year over its opposition to the Protocol.
Mr Sunak's efforts to secure backing for his deal brought him not to the dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone, where stern tests surely await in the days ahead, but to DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's Lagan Valley constituency and a Lisburn soft drink factory.
It is an example of the sort of business Mr Sunak believes will benefit from the framework he and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen hailed as a "decisive breakthrough" as they hit the reset button on EU and UK relations.
If the deal is not to go flat, Mr Sunak needs to persuade not only sceptics, such as DUP MPs Sammy Wilson and Ian Paisley, but also those in other parties who recognise that sensible trade arrangements between Britain, Northern Ireland and the EU are urgent and vital.
Key to this is explaining the Stormont Brake. This is a novel measure which allows 30 MLAs to register their opposition to a change in EU rules by raising a petition of concern. It can only pulled as a last resort and not "for trivial reasons".
The framework talks of setting up a structured process involving the British government, MLAs and "consultation with businesses and others affected".
If the brake is applied, the British government can exercise "an unequivocal veto" which enables the rule "to be permanently disapplied".
This is different than giving Stormont itself a veto over EU rules in Northern Ireland, which is what Mr Sunak has seemed to imply.
Because of how petitions of concern have been exercised at Stormont in the past, there are legitimate concerns that powersharing could be trapped in ever decreasing circles of veto politics.
Rather than creating stability and sustainability, an improperly designed brake could instead bake-in the sort of stop-start government we must put behind us if Northern Ireland is to prosper and make the most of the opportunities on offer through the EU-UK trade deal.
It is imperative that the detail of the Stormont Brake mechanism is now clarified with the full involvement of Stormont parties.
