Ben Lowry: Unionists have not as claimed got most of their demands in this reported deal over the Northern Ireland Protocol

This takes many forms, some of it explicit but much more of it implied. The implied pressure often comes in the form of statements in which various organisations or people, often apolitical, call publicly for Stormont to be restored so it can deal with such-and-such an issue (subtext: the DUP is to blame).

But there are three explicit charges against unionism that are particularly in need of being challenged, yet they are sprayed around on the airwaves and in the media, often without any counter view.

One is that only hardliners and wreckers and Brexit purists are concerned about the nature of the coming deal (the shape of which seems fairly clear).

Another is that DUP and unionism is getting 90% of what it wants, and that it is therefore unreasonable to hold out for more.

The third false claim is a more longstanding one – that the Northern Ireland Protocol does not inflict constitutional harm.

Taking these criticisms in turn:

It is nonsense to say, and indeed slyly denigrating to imply, that only extreme or negative unionists are worried about this deal.

At times almost the opposite has been the case. Some people in the DUP who are seen as coming from conservative wing of the party, such as Edwin Poots (most recently in his call for farmers to retain subsidies under the protocol), have seemed notably pragmatic about the Irish Sea border.

On the other hand, some of the most moderate unionists are among the people who are most concerned about the NI Protocol. It was, after all, the traditionally more moderate unionist grouping, the Ulster Unionist Party, that was immediately scathing about the initial acceptance by the traditionally more hardline party, the DUP, of Boris Johnson’s first iteration of the protocol on October 2 2019 (the DUP points out that it did so on the basis of a Stormont role, and on the understanding that NI would be fully within UK customs territory).

But even that first iteration of the protocol had a regulatory border (ie one that relates to standards of goods and so on) and such a frontier has quickly proved itself to diminish our place in the UK.

One of the reasons that I began to get concerned about a post Brexit regulatory border between NI and Great Britain was because the Irish politician Phil Hogan, who was EU trade commissioner, said after the 2016 vote that the regulatory barrier was more onerous than a customs (tariff) one.

In 2018 and 2019 this newspaper began to report on how the UK government and some unionists seemed to be changing their language to use the word customs border when they were speaking about how unacceptable such a border would be. Just as Mr Hogan said, a regulatory border has proved extraordinarily intrusive.

Almost no-one outside of high-level trade, legal and political worlds envisaged the tentacles that the protocol would have.

The claim that the DUP has got the overwhelming bulk of its demands is now being pushed to make it look like it is churlishly keeping down Stormont because it is insisting on securing 100% of its negotiating aims. Admittedly this claim is helped by the fact that the party did not cite the primacy of EU law and the European Court of Justice in its seven tests. It says that the tests were not a comprehensive list but were based on statements by government ministers which they wanted to see delivered.

It is also the case that the demand for an end to the primacy of EU laws is one that has grown with time, as those laws have increasingly been seen to be the crux of the problem with regard to internal trade.

Not only is unionism not getting what it wants in this respect, there seems to be no prospect of EU trade laws ceasing to have primacy in Northern Ireland. This effort to overturn that primacy is not helped by the fact that leading politicians in both the Ulster Unionist Party and DUP have at times called for Northern Ireland to have special (unique within the UK) access to the EU single market.

You could say that it is strange, or even ridiculous, for such politicians (if they supported Brexit and an exit from that market, which after all was a core aim among the more purist Brexiteers) to ask for us to have such access. But setting aside such judgements, it cannot have gone unnoticed by Brussels that leading unionists are content with that benefit of the protocol.

Anyway, the fact that EU law will continue to have primacy and the European Court will most likely ultimately adjudicate on the implementation of that primacy is why it is quite wrong to say that unionists have the bulk of their demands.

And finally the claim that the protocol does not have constitutional impact is also wrong. When you read Peter Summerton today (see link below), the haulier who has been such an informed voice on the actual impact of the Irish Sea border, you are reminded of the scale of the barrier.

As he writes, even under ‘green’ and ‘red’ lanes there will be such a documentation burden that goods going to NI will not be doing so as if part of the UK internal market. Putting aside legal debates about the Act of Union, to me being part of a nation means being part of its internal market.

I do not write this column as a purist. I thought Brexit was so risky that unionists should steer clear of it. I think that the NI Protocol Bill, as a useful enabling act (to let the UK retreat from the protocol in the face of future EU-UK divergence), was an acceptable alternative to scrapping the entire thing.

But I also think that unionists concerns and actions have been legitimate.

Ben Lowry (@BenLowry2) is News Letter editor

Ben Lowry February 11: Do not expect unionists to cheer anniversary of Belfast Agreement

Ben Lowry February 4: Church leaders attack London on legacy but are not beyond criticism on the topic themselves

Peter Summerton: NI Protocol deal could make things worse by leading to fewer checks but more documentation