Ben Lowry: Things are bad for unionists in Northern Ireland just now, but by no means lost

Numerous pundits, indeed some influential people in the DUP, had come to think a return was unlikely before a general election. I always thought it could happen at any moment.

This is the way of politics, particularly here, in which something that we are told is never going to happen, or at least not for a long time, suddenly does. The IRA ceasefire, for example, or the devolution of policing and justice in 2010.

I have also, in my career, witnessed firm vows – such as there would never be an Irish language act – suddenly dissolve with barely a whimper of protest.

I have further watched unionists respond with near apathy and resignation to almost unreal developments such as the legacy of terrorism being allowed to turn against the security forces who prevented civil war.

This week I was grilled on BBC Radio Ulster's Good Morning Ulster programme about our editorial response to the return of Stormont. It was put to me that we were sitting on the fence about the matter, but I pointed out that one of the BBC presenters had said they were still working their way through the agreement, with much greater resources than a small newspaper. The European Commission was doing likewise, with its vast bureaucracy.

But in the same way that Europe had, plainly, made an instinctive call that the deal was no threat to their Windsor Framework, we made some swift judgements of our own.

Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says there is no Irish Sea border. We say clearly that there is (while welcoming the further ameliorations that will eliminate certain checks).

The government has argued at some length in the agreement that Northern Ireland is not in fact in the EU single market for goods, whereas we believe that to all intents and purposes we still are. The deal makes interesting and lengthy arguments that we are in the UK internal market, which we hope to examine in the coming weeks.

That there is an Irish Sea border, albeit one that is massively less intrusive than would have been the full implementation of the original Northern Ireland Protocol, is – I believe – a bad development for unionism.

On radio I pointed out that the News Letter never talked of the benefits of dual access to Great Britain and the EU if it meant any impediment to internal UK trade.

I could go back and say that in the aftermath of Brexit we recognised the complications it would cause for Northern Ireland, and advocated the Norway model in which all of the UK would be in the single market, but outside of the customs territory (this, incidentally, would have meant a customs border at land in Ireland, but it would have had to be invisible. In other words we were in essence arguing for a reverse of the situation that currently prevails – we wanted legal change to be at the land border but it to be invisible, whereas now there is legal change in the Irish Sea, albeit largely invisible).

A further footnote on that: I was struck early after Brexit by something that Phil Hogan, the Irish trade commissioner had said, that a regulatory border was more intrusive than a customs one – as it has proved to be, and all the more reason why a UK-wide Norway might have worked, eliminating the massive burden of a regulatory barrier anywhere.

Further we have always said that if devolution goes into stalemate, as is inevitable in an abnormal system of mandatory coalition, then it is essential to have a spell of direct rule with no increased say for the Irish government. Instead, disgracefully, unionists were subject to implied or actual threats of such Irish interference, when Sinn Fein was not so much as criticised by the government for its three-year collapse.

We have also repeatedly challenged sentimentality about Stormont's achievements and capabilities. We have covered concerns that not merely Stormont, but the devolution itself, can be used to dismantle the United Kingdom - as indeed is the Scottish National Party strategy and the Sinn Fein one.

Yesterday I talked to Sir Jeffrey Donaldson about his agreement, and the web version of this article will include a video clip in which I put to him the idea that the Irish Sea border is still intact and that the Windsor Framework has not in fact been changed.

The DUP leadership believe that the government was not, in late 2021, taking concerns about the Irish Sea border seriously and did not believe that they would withdraw from Stormont. The party thinks that when they took that step it accelerated momentum towards the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill which would have overhauled the protocol. It, rightly I would say, believes that Liz Truss would have pressed ahead with that legislation.

Sir Jeffrey faced two poor options: return to power sharing with a party that wants Northern Ireland to fail, and is emboldened, or change to Stormont so it can override protections for the minority (now that unionists are in the minority).

There is a lot more to say about this but finally, for now, it is only fair to recognise that there has been a sea change in London’s approach to Dublin. I think this is belated, but welcome.

Ireland’s hypocritical legacy legal action against the UK has accelerated the move away from a neutral approach to Northern Ireland. Such an approach, it is now understood, will only hasten an all-Ireland.

The Windsor Framework, for all its overselling, was part of more emphatic defence of the Union. On Monday we will be reporting on fresh ideas in London to renew the UK’s strategic interest in Northern Ireland as a part of the UK.

Things are bad for unionists, but by no means lost.