The process that delivered us the Northern Ireland Protocol already seems to have been rewritten in official memory. It suits most parties involved to pretend the outcome was inevitable.
For Brussels, it helps them defend an arrangement designed to ‘protect the peace’ which is instead corroding loyalist support for the Belfast Agreement. For those in London, it is infinitely preferable to pretend that they were honouring the UK’s ‘obligations under the Good Friday Agreement’ rather than own one of the most abject episodes of British diplomacy in recent memory.
It also helps to shift the blame onto preferred targets. So Boris Johnson gets execrated for lying to unionists about his willingness to oppose an Irish Sea border, but overlooked is the fact that MPs stripped him of any leverage in the negotiations by passing the Benn Act.
A quick fix on the most obnoxious consequences of the Irish Sea border won’t address the deep currents that are corroding unionist support for the Belfast Agreement
So too is the fact that Ireland’s maximalist position against a land border was not inevitable, but a conscious choice by Leo Varadkar sold to the EU through a prodigious diplomatic effort.
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