Editorial: Rishi Sunak's remarks on a Northern Ireland Protocol deal add to the muddled air around the negotiations

The political editor for ITV made an astute observation this week about Rishi Sunak’s appearance in Prime Minister’s Questions.

Mr Peston said that one of Mr Sunak’s answers to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson “made my jaw drop” when the DUP leader said he wanted a change to the Brexit treaty to take Northern Ireland out of the EU single market.

"Rather than confront the DUP leader with the facts, which is that there is zero chance of that, Sunak implied he agreed with Donaldson ...”

It was indeed a telling exchange in the House of Commons, because it epitomised how muddled things have become.

We now know the sort of deal that is taking shape and the EU parameters. Therefore it is not helpful to have it implied that the UK is striving for an agreement that will take a particular shape when in fact it is not likely to take that shape. Or that we might be near to an agreement that will contain the sorts of things that the DUP seems increasingly to emphasise it won’t accept (increasingly its position seems to have hardened on the seven tests).

There is no doubt that London, like the DUP, is under great pressure to reach agreement, but all this does is raise expectations that fall so far short of reality then acceptance of the actual deal becomes all the less likely.

Jim Allister KC, opposite, outlines some unpalatable truths about the belief that NI can have the best of both worlds. Unfortunately though the UK in a series of moves since 2017 has conceded fundamental principles on NI that will be very hard to retrieve.

Boris Johnson is again saying that the NI Protocol Bill is the way forward. Has scrapping it long ago been conceded by Mr Sunak? It seems so.

It is great pity therefore that this clamour to keep the bill did not exist as it began to fall off the radar.