A highly significant intervention from Tony Blair on the Northern Ireland Protocol

Not long ago, unionist opponents of the Northern Ireland Protocol looked badly isolated.

The Irish Sea border had the overwhelming support of business, with all of the major representative groups including the Ulster Farmers Union accepting the Brussels-Dublin premise that above all there must be no change whatsoever at the Irish land border.

The Conservative government was denying any border in the Irish Sea. The Labour Party was strongly pro the NI Protocol.

The Alliance Party and Greens were making clear that there was no difference between them and Sinn Fein and the SDLP in their support for the Irish Sea border (which they demanded be rigorously implemented – a demand that they subsequently have done every somersault to deny they meant).

Even some unionists were talking about the best of both worlds, some of whom had led Boris Johnson to believe a regulatory border between NI and Great Britain was acceptable.

It was a time when unionism seemed confused, weak, uninformed, defeatist and devoid of significant support.

So much has changed since then. London realises that the protocol is a profound constitutional problem for the UK.

Even Hilary Benn, the very man whose Westminster amendment sought to block a no deal Brexit, and thus helped hasten the protocol deal between Boris Johnson and Leo Varadkar, has urged the EU to compromise.

Now Tony Blair has said that the hardline EU stance on the protocol puts the Belfast Agreement at risk.

This is a hugely significant and welcome statement from the former Labour Party prime minister, who played a central role in the historic 1998 deal. It is all the more noteworthy given that Mr Blair has at times seemed preoccupied with assuaging Irish republican concerns, and given that he was an outspoken critic of Brexit.

Now he has added great weight to the key point that the Belfast Agreement is not just a document that is defined by nationalist Ireland, but a deal which introduced the crucial principle of consent, so threatened by the protocol.

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