Tracey Magee: Protocol noise and speculation grows at Westminster but with little movement

Walking around Westminster this week I feel like I’ve been transported back in some ghastly time machine to 2019. The DUP are furious about a Brexit plan, Eurosceptic MPs are muttering ominously and an embattled Prime Minister is trying to convince all and sundry that the government’s cunning plan to solve the problem really will work. The result is a lot of noise and speculation but very little movement.

Last week it all seemed so different.

The Prime Minister travelled to Belfast ostensibly to speak to the parties. Although his flying visit was really talk to the DUP – a fact which became clear when it was later revealed he had a secret meeting with the party on the night he arrived.

The next day he and officials spent over an hour talking to the DUP delegation while the other parties got only 15 minutes of facetime with Mr Sunak.

On the same day the Foreign Secretary James Cleverly met with his EU Brexit counterpart Maroš Šefčovič . That weekend the Prime Minister met with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen during a defence conference in Munich. At last, the weary Press pack thought, after months of nothing/something/who knows what the negotiations on the NI Protocol could be reaching a conclusion. It wasn’t to be.

Rishi Sunak has learned a lesson his predecessors could have told him – the DUP have no problem with the word ‘No.’

In fact, if you take them for granted, or even give them the impression you’re taking them for granted, ‘No’ is the go to position. It’s not that the DUP want to turn down the deal. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is a devolutionist. The complaint from the party is that the Prime Minister has not shared with them the deal his government has been working on for months.

More to the point, what he did reveal to them last week represented some progress, but crucially not enough. There’s been some speculation that the DUP is not united on its stance on the Protocol.

That’s not what I’m picking up. “It’s for the birds,” one MP told me dismissively. In Stormont MLAs may have had their wages cut, but the party is backing the leader’s stance. “The party knows the stakes are high,” one MLA told me.

“We have to take time and look at this strategically and properly. This isn’t about getting a quick decision. It’s about reaching a deal that will work today, tomorrow and in 10 years’ time.” Another said: “There are some in the party who would deal right now just to get back in (to Stormont). Others would reject it no matter what is on the table because they’ve lost interest in Stormont. But the vast majority of the party are willing to give Jeffrey time to try to get a better deal – if he can.” An MP also pointed out that Sir Jeffrey of all people is only too aware of how a leader can be damaged if he doesn’t take his party with him on a deal.

Post the Good Friday Agreement it was Sir Jeffery Donaldson who became the lightning rod for Ulster Unionist anger at David Trimble over the terms of the deal. The DUP also insists it is under no pressure from wider unionism. Certainly polls suggest that the tough stance it has taken on the Protocol has boosted its fortunes. It would also be a mistake to minimise the party’s capacity for stubbornness.

“Number 10 have underestimated how nihilistic the DUP can be,” a unionist observer remarked to me. The problem for the Prime Minister is that expectations have been raised. For days media reports have breathlessly predicted the deal was to be unveiled this week. It has to be pointed out that’s not the sort of speculation journalists tend to pick out of thin air and just everybody who has come to a microphone or spoken off the record has said a deal is in sight. However, anyone who has followed the Brexit saga will tell you it’s a rollercoaster. Anyone who has been involved in any of Northern Ireland’s many talk processes will also remind you of the uncomfortable reality that ‘nothing is agreed until everything agreed’.

Hopes of a deal this week are fading fast. As momentum slips out of the talks the fear is the EU will lose faith in the Prime Minister’s ability to seal a deal.

In those circumstances it’s hard to envisage the bloc agreeing to more concessions. ‘How’s it looking?’ I texted someone in Brussels who has a good handle on the negotiations. “Well it’s not dead yet,” was the far-from-optimistic reply. The Prime Minister now faces a big decision – does he do the deal without the DUP in the sure and certain knowledge Stormont will not be restored while at the same time alienating his Eurosceptic MPs?

Does he risk a vote on Parliament which could lead to him having to depend on Labour support to get a Brexit vote over the line?

And does he do all of this in the knowledge that Boris Johnson is in the wings waiting an opportunity to get back on the stage? Feels like I’m going to be stumbling around in a 2019- esque Brexit limbo for a while yet.

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