The EU is overplaying its hand on Northern Ireland

The EU’s decision to take control of the vaccine programme was hardly a roaring success. The eurozone’s economy remains stuck in recession. And the EU’s foreign policy is a mess, as events in Belarus have just made clear. 

Still, despite the evidence that she isn’t very good at managing anything, no one can argue that the European Union’s president Ursula von der Leyen lacks self-confidence. Last night, she made it clear there could be no possible compromise over the Northern Ireland protocol. The trouble is that she could easily bring the whole trade deal between the EU and the UK crashing down.

It was always likely that the deal between the EU and the UK, especially as it applied along the fractious border between Northern and southern Ireland, was going to need some flexibility and goodwill to work successfully. By keeping Northern Ireland inside the Single Market and the customs union, while the rest of the UK left, it was always a messy compromise.