Opinion

Newton Emerson: Protocol train is about to leave the station

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

“We’re going to slow it all down. This is a battle of who blinks first and we’ve cut off our eyelids.”

So a DUP source told the media in 2017, when plans for the Brexit backstop emerged.

Some of that bravado no doubt still exists within the party, despite its unblinking approach leading inexorably to the protocol.

Although the quote is infamous, its first line is usually forgotten: slowing everything down is an under-rated political tactic. Even if you have no idea how to get to a better destination, events will move everyone on.

Another tactic the DUP has adopted in the past is good-cop, bad-cop. Sinn Fein was better at it, for obvious reasons. Tony Blair and his ministers became openly scornful of hearing parties say they would love to do a deal, or honour a deal they had made, if only they were not worried about their own hardliners. Nevertheless, the tactic was frequently rewarded.

Current rumblings from the DUP about its leadership having to manage factions and reassure the grassroots should be set against that history.

However, the staring contest the party has now embarked on over the bill to disapply the protocol clearly involves genuine internal weakness, doubt and division.

The government thought it had an understanding that moving the legislation forward would see the DUP quickly restore Stormont. Liz Truss, the foreign secretary, expected the assembly back in business immediately and the executive by September at the latest.

But Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is unable to deliver. The wounds of last year’s leadership contest remain raw and his authority has been compromised by the game of musical chairs over his Westminster seat.

The party is effectively trapped by an opinion poll two weeks ago showing 92 per cent of its voters support boycotting Stormont until the protocol is changed or removed – a more hardline stance than Sir Jeffrey has ever signalled. He cannot order the DUP to climb down from this in a matter of weeks.

So the leadership is splitting the difference. Peter Robinson, brought back as an adviser, set this out in a News Letter article last week. The DUP will restore the assembly, although probably not until September, but remain outside the executive until the bill is passed.

In the meantime, it will give a solemn assurance to restore the executive, to address suspicions it is only blocking Stormont to prevent a Sinn Féin first minister or to hold out for another assembly election.

This has all the hallmarks of a Robinsonesque ‘clever device’ but it is a compromise the DUP is making with itself.

From the government’s perspective, it is worse than useless. There is no prospect of the bill being passed before the end of October, when Stormont’s caretaker period expires and an election has to be called.

In fact, there is little prospect of the bill ever becoming law, certainly in its current form. The threat of legislation is a UK negotiating tactic.

The DUP has been offered a chance to play along, allowing it to claim some credit for whatever deal emerges from talks with the EU. Those talks are the only arena where the government is contemplating compromise.

There is utter exasperation in London that the DUP is shying away from its role in obtaining the best deal possible – a role designed with the DUP’s needs in mind.

Talks on the protocol will still be going ahead, with or without the DUP. If the bill is stalled due to unionist non-cooperation, the UK’s hand will be weakened.

Should this persist until the end of October, the DUP will have no friends left in Westminster and the government will have complete political cover to do a deal over unionism’s head.

If an assembly election is seen to be rewarding DUP obstruction, it could be cancelled or indefinitely postponed.

Other Stormont parties and the Irish government could support such a move in exasperation, provided it stops short of formal direct rule. There might even be enough political cover to start examining the veto of the two largest parties over executive formation.

While any unionist asked to trust Boris Johnson’s government can legitimately fear being thrown under the bus, a metaphor from the Blair era is more appropriate. This train is about to leave the station.