It’s extraordinary. Is it really Rishi Sunak who spoke or his unconscious who forked? Speaking at a Coca-Cola factory in Lisburn, south of Belfast, the Prime Minister wanted to reassure the Northern Irish. To the often neglected citizens of this constituent nation of the United Kingdom, he explained how much they were in an enviable position for the other three (England, Scotland, Wales) and even “unique in the world”. “Nobody else has that. Nobody – only you, only here!” the Englishman told his compatriots in the North West. For what ? Because thanks to the “Windsor agreement” that it has just negotiated with Brussels, the Northern Irish will have the immense privilege of benefiting both from the British internal market, the fifth largest in the world, AND from the internal market European – the first in the world. What country would not dream of such a situation? “It doesn’t exist anywhere else!”, exclaimed the Prime Minister, amazed that Northern Ireland was becoming, in his own words, “the most exciting economic area in the world”. But he forgot one detail: this exceptional chance, the privileged access to the two British and European markets, was exactly what the whole of the United Kingdom benefited from. Until he abandoned this “exciting zone” for the mirage of Brexit, which Rishi Sunak himself, an early Brexiter, had wanted to believe. Decidedly, this endless political farce is full of comic pearls that demonstrate its own absurdity. Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister, for this moment of laughter and admission of truth.
Let’s recap. On February 27, the European Union and the United Kingdom reached a compromise called the “Windsor Framework” – an amendment to the “Northern Ireland Protocol” which had been signed on January 24, 2020, and was the key of the Brexit agreement. This protocol made it possible to circumvent more or less the original impasse of Brexit which established customs controls, and therefore a new border between Northern Ireland, belonging to the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland, integrated into the single market. European. He had moved the border to the Irish Sea while keeping Northern Ireland in the European market for goods. The agreement thus made it possible to avoid the emergence of a land border between the two parts of the island of Ireland, which would have weakened the peace concluded in 1998 after three decades of bloody conflict. But this rickety solution, like Brexit as a whole, complicated trade between Great Britain and its Northern Irish province instead of facilitating it. Rishi Sunak wanted to get out of the litigation, without retracting. Admitting his mistakes would require too painful an abnegation, but the Prime Minister has the merit of turning a page with the EU. Unity in the face of war in Ukraine is better than a silly divorce between European democracies. The “Windsor framework” thus makes it possible, without affecting the single European market, to make the passage of goods more fluid by exempting from control those whose final destination is Northern Ireland.
“We finally have a sensible and working Prime Minister!”
It was enough to wake up the ghost of Boris Johnson. Rishi Sunak’s compromise with the Union is a humiliation inflicted on the former Prime Minister, who had made the demonization of Europe the crux of his strategy and who only thinks of getting back on stage. By disavowing it, Sunak takes the risk of alienating “hard” Brexiteers – including the DUP party in Northern Ireland – and blowing up the Conservative party. He chose reconciliation with the EU against them, essential to bring his country out of isolation and to coax the United States of Joe Biden, a descendant of Irish particularly sensitive to the question. In their best-selling podcast ‘The Rest is Politics’, Conservative Rory Stewart, former minister to Theresa May, and Labor Alastair Campbell, former adviser to Tony Blair, discuss the ‘Sunak case’. “We finally have a sensible and working Prime Minister!” Rejoices Rory the Tory. “The bar has fallen so low among our political leaders that having a simply serious Prime Minister is seen as a revolution,” growls Alastair Labour.
Marion Van Renterghem is a great reporter, winner of the Albert-Londres prize and biographer of Angela Merkel.