Rishi’s new momentum

When Rishi Sunak appeared in the House of Commons to outline the details of his new agreement on the Northern Ireland Protocol, one politician was conspicuous by his absence. Over the past few weeks, Boris Johnson had been warning that Sunak was making a mistake in his dealings with Brussels. His words were taken by MPs and journalists as evidence that he was preparing to lead the rebellion against a deal. But on the day, the would-be rebel leader was nowhere to be found. ‘It’s very Boris to march an army up a hill and then be missing in action,’ says a minister.

Johnson’s retreat reflects the changing power balance in the party. A new Brexit deal had been viewed as a moment of peril for Sunak and an opportunity for Johnson. The Prime Minister would look soft on an issue that has brought down several predecessors, thereby allowing Johnson to rally the right of the party and begin his comeback.

The new agreement – given the patriotic name of the ‘Windsor Framework’ – has won praise across the Tory party, generally seen as a better deal than Johnson was able to negotiate. There have been no government resignations. Even members of the European Research Group – who plan to wait a week before deciding whether to back it – privately admit Sunak has secured more concessions than they expected. The former Tory party leader Michael Howard, a Brexiteer, has said Johnson ‘would have bitten Michel Barnier’s hand off’ for such a deal. 

The introduction of a Stormont brake – a unionist veto over new EU rules – is among the measures heralded as significant progress, although there are questions over the circumstance in which it could be used. Sunak’s claim that the deal has ‘removed any sense of a border in the Irish sea’ is also debated, but there is a consensus that checks will be at the very least drastically reduced.