Ben Habib: Negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol will not work – any ‘deal’ will be a lousy deal

The nation believed the Conservatives again a year later in the general election when they said the country would leave the EU as one United Kingdom.

Many went on believing the misrepresentations peddled by ministers about the protocol and their intention to fix it. Their lies increasingly flying in the face of reality.

We were told the government would not hesitate to invoke Article 16 to suspend the protocol; but hesitate is all it has done. We were told the NI Protocol Bill would be used unilaterally to address it; but its passage through Parliament has now been suspended by Rishi Sunak.

Hope was rekindled when two members of the eurosceptic ERG were appointed secretary of state and minister respectively for Northern Ireland. Notwithstanding their pedigree, Messrs Heaton-Harris and Baker duly followed the path of their predecessors. Their actions are more akin to those sympathetic to Irish nationalism and the EU. Not only has trust in the Conservative Party gone, so now has trust in the ERG.

In the end, so duplicitous did this government become, that it was promising to fix the protocol at the same time as arguing in court that it is entirely legitimate. Had Stormont not been brought down, the protocol would be well on its way to being irreversibly established.

If Sunak now thinks he can allay unionists’ and Brexiteers’ fears by bringing back Oliver Lewis, one of Boris Johnson’s Brexit advisers, he is mistaken. Johnson was the problem; he created this mess. Nothing his legacy or associates have to offer is worth having when it comes to restoring the Union of Great Britain with Northern Ireland.

By committing himself to a negotiated settlement with the EU, Sunak has turned his back on Northern Ireland. Any “deal” he does, endorsed or otherwise by Lewis, will be a lousy deal. The EU has made it plain there will be no going back on its laws applying in Northern Ireland and its court adjudicating those laws. A deal which leaves Northern Ireland subject to foreign laws is not acceptable.

No negotiation with the EU will yield the required result. The only way properly to fix the Protocol is by unilateral British action - to ditch it. Doing so does not require new legislation, just a government with the courage, foresight and capability of putting first the country’s interests.

For its utter failure economically, politically and constitutionally, the Conservative Party is, deservedly, going to be decimated at the next election. Their collapse in the polls is not midterm blues. There will be no timely recovery from the position into which they have delivered the country and their party. Many good and genuinely conservative MPs will lose their seats. They were elected to get Brexit done. They will be remembered for breaking the country.

The Conservative Party was a phenomenal election winning machine. It achieved its success by becoming a “broad church” and ejecting any true form of ideology. It sought to be all things to all people and carried this through to government. The plan was good for winning office but hopeless for government.

So the Tories will be gone in two years’ time. Left to its own devices, Labour will be worse. If the damage Labour would do is to be minimised and the cause of unionism advanced, unionists must get on the front foot and influence events in London. It will not be good enough to wait for what unfolds and then react to it. Such an approach would leave Northern Ireland at the mercy of a Labour majority in which it would have no say.

In anticipation of a Tory rout, new political alliances are being formed in Great Britain. Unionists from across the country need to engage in these and shape events. We need to create a block big enough to hold any future governing party to account.

Making sure Stormont is not re-formed ahead of ditching the Protocol is a pre-requisite but it is not, in itself, sufficient. Northern Ireland has to be made directly relevant to British politics. That can only be done through engagement on the mainland.

We must take the fight to London.

* Ben Habib is a former Brexit Party MEP