A needless drama over a bill which delivers little for Northern Ireland

The UK government is to a significant degree responsible for the needless drama.

London wants to minimise the internal frontier that Boris Johnson agreed with Leo Varadkar in Cheshire last year. The theories as to why the then new prime minister did this have been widely rehearsed. Some say he betrayed and abandoned the DUP as soon as he could. Others that the Benn amendment meant he had no choice: strike a deal over Northern Ireland or lose Brexit and the premiership.

There is probably some truth in both explanations.

It is not clear whether Mr Johnson did not understand what he agreed, or whether he was bluffing. Certainly he has brazened out the new border, by saying that there will be no new checks, that people can bin any forms, that a border down the Irish Sea will be over my dead body —all nonsense.

While it is welcome that the PM is trying to do something to mitigate this disastrous (and unforgivable) border, there are a number of problems.

First, it is all happening too late. Any retreat should have been set in motion within days of the general elections.

Second, Brandon Lewis foolishly (and seeming based on briefing notes in front of him) was open about it being a deliberate breach of international law.

Given that any move at all to reduce an Irish Sea border is met with fury among nationalists and EU supporters in Northern Ireland, there was always going to be uproar over any retreat.

So why did Mr Lewis phrase it so baldly, prompting a number of resignations from government positions and resulting in criticism from the lord chief justice of Northern Ireland?

He could have said that the UK would go to considerable lengths to ensure that its territorial integrity was preserved, and that everyone was held to their own responsibilities.

The bill does not in any event deliver that much for Northern Ireland. Now a climbdown even from that modest plan seems quite possible.

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