Editorial: All now turns on the DUP so the party is right to take its time to study the Northern Ireland Protocol deal

There has been speculation that the party might back the agreement, although its leaders do have have details of the likely accord. Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the News Letter: “We have yet to see the legal text of any agreement but we are clear that we will judge it against our seven tests and this includes of course the issues that arise from the application of EU law in Northern Ireland. It is vital that Northern Ireland's place within the UK and its internal market is restored. We will have lawyers assess the legal text to ensure that this in fact the case.”

We had asked Sir Jeffrey about the primacy of EU law, because the party’s seven tests did not mention that, or the European Court of Justice. The DUP position is key given that the European Research Group (ERG) of Eurosceptic Tory MPs has, as we report today, are clear that the DUP must be happy with a deal before they will endorse it. Sir Jeffrey’s party was already under pressure.

He is right to get expert analysis and might have to delay some time before making a decision. It will not be good if the DUP move quickly towards endorsing a deal that over time comes to have lots of snares, as the original NI Protocol itself did. Imagine the scenario: the ERG opposition crumbles because the DUP gave it the go-ahead. Then in a few years the outworkings of the revised Irish Sea border prove highly burdensome.

The EU will then say that it had near unanimous support and will point out that they have already made significant revisions.

It is possible that London has a surprisingly good deal, one that creates a trade situation far less good for NI than prevailed in 2016 but which is as good as the NI Protocol Bill would have been. The path to such an outcome is still hard to see.

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