02.03.2023

Sunak’s Brexit deal

English sausages and Stilton cheese have little to do with the Windsor Framework. Kevin Bean looks at the wider strategic context

For many of us it seemed just like old times again: top-level meetings between British politicians and European Union leaders, media headlines about historic breakthroughs and vox pops from Northern Ireland gauging the reaction of ‘public opinion’ to an historic agreement.

The events surrounding the announcement of the Windsor Framework did have a very familiar feel for anyone who has followed either the peace process or the twists and turns of the Brexit negotiations over the last few years. From the political stage-management of the joint statement and press conference by Rishi Sunak and Ursula von der Leyen in Windsor on Monday to the careful choreography of the prime minister’s meetings with political parties and the “communities of Northern Ireland” on Tuesday, this has been a master class in how to do contemporary bourgeois politics. While the devil is clearly in the detail, the framework both develops and amends the existing Northern Ireland protocol. In his press conference and subsequent speeches Sunak put a very positive spin on the framework, which he said both represented significant changes to the protocol and opened up exciting new economic opportunities for Northern Ireland as uniquely part of the UK and the EU’s single markets.

Much of the media focus has been on the replacement of checks on all goods entering Northern Ireland, with a new system of two channels: green for goods remaining in Northern Ireland; and red for goods going into the Irish Republic and thus the EU single market. The government argues that this will reduce delays and bureaucracy, and end what many unionists saw as an effective border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. Politically, the most important concession appears to be the ‘Stormont brake’, which would allow the Northern Ireland assembly to object to new EU rules being imposed on Northern Ireland if 30 MLAs from two or more parties sign a petition. If the brake is triggered, the UK government can tell the EU that the new rules cannot be implemented and the proposed changes would be subject to arbitration. Significantly, this brake cannot be used for ‘trivial reasons’ and only applies to ‘significantly different rules’.

However, how far this constitutes a real veto for the Northern Ireland assembly remains open to question, given the ultimate role of the Westminster government in determining the process. Likewise, for many unionists and Tory Eurosceptics, the continuing role of the European Court of Justice in enforcing the implementation of certain single-market rules in Northern Ireland remains a key issue of diminished UK sovereignty. So, for all the upbeat messaging about new beginnings and fantastic potential, the framework bears all the hallmarks of the constructive ambiguity we have so often met before in the peace-process politics of Northern Ireland.

The Tory leader has generally gained positive media coverage, as he attempts to create a sense of momentum and an unstoppable dynamic that will allow the ‘new framework’ to stick. Much of the potential opposition from the Tory backbenchers of the European Research Group has either melted away or been rather muted. Their ‘star chamber’ of lawyers is taking two weeks to look at the details of the framework, but this appears to be a face-saving exercise rather than a prelude to a renewed rebellion. Similarly, Boris Johnson has kept his counsel and made no open criticisms, and increasingly it seems that for him too the moment to challenge Rishi Sunak has passed, at least for the time being.

However, if it seems that Sunak has carried all before him, there remains the issue of the reaction of the Democratic Unionist Party. Whilst its leadership has suggested that there are some ‘positive elements’ in the framework, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has also expressed reservations and, like the ERG, will take his time to make a clear pronouncement. Potential leadership rivals Ian Paisley junior and Sammy Wilson have been more critical of some of the details and question how far the Windsor Framework is really any different from the existing Northern Ireland protocol.

In a bind?

The DUP finds itself in something of a bind. While Sunak has graciously given its leadership time to consider, he has also made it clear that in effect he will continue on the course he has set himself and that there can be no renegotiation of the document.

Given the much-weakened state of the DUP’s erstwhile allies in the ERG and the hitherto muted response of the other Tory Eurosceptics, its political leverage at Westminster has very much evaporated. Some DUP leaders might try to make the best of a bad job and argue that ‘the Stormont brake’ and the other modifications to the trading and single-market arrangements outlined in the framework are a successful product of DUP pressure: they can claim that the party’s withdrawal from the Stormont executive and assembly has worked and now is the time to bank their gains. But it remains to be seen if this line will work, given the pressure on the DUP from the much more recently formed Traditional Unionist Voice to its right: TUV’s leader, Jim Allister, has strongly condemned the framework as leaving Northern Ireland subject to EU law and thus continuing to weaken the union. With local council elections approaching in May, TUV remains something of an electoral threat to the DUP and cannot easily be ignored.

While the Windsor Framework necessarily deals with the implementation of Brexit in Northern Ireland, its implications and impact go far beyond the dreary steeples of the Six Counties. So, with much of the content and the thinking underpinning it having been around for years, we may well ask, along with commentators Danny Finkelstein and Fintan O’Toole, what took them so long to come up with this deal?¹

A number of factors have determined the timing and the ultimate shape of the framework. Sunak’s wish to gain some political advantage by ‘solving’ an outstanding problem and finally ‘getting Brexit done’ is clearly an important immediate factor, along with the opportunities opened up to him by the shifts in the internal balance of forces within the cabinet and the Conservative Party more generally. Getting a deal on Northern Ireland, restoring power-sharing and returning to devolved government are obvious ways for a relatively new prime minister to stamp his authority over his internal opposition and make his mark, especially when the Tories are so far behind in the polls.

On a broader scale, the framework, together with the evident improvement in relations between the UK government and the EU, is about much more than the personal chemistry between Rishi and Ursula, or the ways in which the technocrat Sunak offers a safe pair of hands, in comparison with the unreliable, blustering Boris Johnson. What we are seeing here are the beginnings of a new relationship between London and Brussels, which, while it will not undo Brexit or bring the UK back into the single market, will deal with some outstanding economic issues, such as financial services and the role of the City of London in EU markets.²

Moreover, this rapprochement is fully in tune with the new geopolitical realities created by the war in Ukraine and the US reassertion of its hegemony over both the EU and its Nato allies. It is in both the economic and political interests of British capitalism to restore its relationship with its European partners and is, most importantly, a reorientation that accords fully with the strategy and the wishes of the American global hegemon.

Joe Biden might affect a sentimental interest in ‘the old country’ and play up his ‘Oirish’ roots for political effect at home, but Washington’s support for the Windsor framework and warmer UK-EU relations is much more closely determined by its geopolitical interests. Stabilising these links in Europe is an important part of lining up the ducks, and thus strengthening America’s ability to resist both current and future challenges to its economic and political dominance.

The origins of the Windsor Framework might seemingly lie in the banal, everyday issues of the availability of Stilton and English sausages in Belfast, and the technicalities of cross-border trade, but, looked at in this broader geopolitical context, its significance goes far beyond that.