Owen Polley: Baker offered unionists encouragement, but can we rely on an unstable government?

In an interview with the News Letter, published on Saturday, the Northern Ireland minister, Steve Baker, sought to reassure unionists that his well-publicised apology to the EU and the Republic of Ireland wasn’t the prelude to a sell-out.
Steve Baker, UK Minister of State for Northern Ireland pictured at the Northern Ireland Buildling Belfast. Photo: Kirth Ferris/Pacemaker PressSteve Baker, UK Minister of State for Northern Ireland pictured at the Northern Ireland Buildling Belfast. Photo: Kirth Ferris/Pacemaker Press
Steve Baker, UK Minister of State for Northern Ireland pictured at the Northern Ireland Buildling Belfast. Photo: Kirth Ferris/Pacemaker Press

He answered the questions on Tuesday, so the influential Conservative was not yet aware what a turbulent week Liz Truss’s young government was about to experience.

When the UK and the EU reopened protocol negotiations, some people, including Dublin’s foreign minister, Simon Coveney, suggested that the 28th of October might become an informal deadline. The NI Secretary, currently Chris Heaton-Harris, is legally obliged to call a Stormont election on that date, unless a power-sharing executive can be formed in the interim.

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The unionist parties, and particularly the DUP, will be urging the government to remember its commitments to sort the protocol out properly, in the run up to the 28th. Now, though, they can scarcely take it for granted that the prime minister and her cabinet will still be in place.

The Conservatives are mired in one of the narcissistic, self-destructive civil wars that political parties tend to engage in.

Tory MPs first deposed Theresa May and her weak government, before winning a thumping majority under Boris Johnson and turning on him, after a series of scandals. Now, many of them are unreconciled to Liz Truss as their leader, after an uncertain start and poor poll ratings. They are briefing that they will get rid of her too.

Last week, I wrote that there were signs that the government may erase its ‘red lines’ on the protocol and soften its approach to negotiations. Previously, Ms Truss was explicit that any ‘negotiated settlement’ must “deliver all of the things we set out in the NI Protocol Bill.”

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One of the factors that alarmed unionists was Mr Baker’s apology, which was directed in large part at Dublin, where anti-British rhetoric has been relentless, unrepentant and practically universal since the Brexit referendum. The Tory ‘Spartan’, who defied a relentless whipping operation to defeat Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, said “I and other ministers did not always behave in a way which encouraged Ireland and the EU to trust us to accept that they have legitimate interests. I am sorry about that.”

In a follow-up interview on Irish radio, he claimed that the government would go into negotiations without ‘red lines’.

Mr Baker pointed out subsequently that he also stressed his administration’s ‘resolve’, when it came to sorting out the Irish Sea border. And he said that his point on the radio about red lines was “not to discuss them in public”, rather than to imply that there were none.

It seems that the NI minister was rather shaken by the strength of unionists’ reactions to his apology. And in his News Letter interview, he was keen to provide reassurance.

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“The first thing I should say,” he told this newspaper, “is that the protocol as it is today is clearly intolerable to legitimate unionist interests.” His point on resolve, he insisted, “didn’t get picked up” by the media.

Many of Mr Baker’s answers will have had the desired effect of encouraging News Letter readers. He wants the UK out of the EU “as one coherent whole” and his opinion on that hasn’t changed. “The constitutional status of Northern Ireland right now is intolerable, because … Northern Ireland is still tied to EU laws.”

But there were aspects of the interview that were concerning too.

Mr Baker implied that his apology was designed to demonstrate that he does “consider other people’s interests.” However, he thought it necessary partly because nationalist critics, like the SDLP MP, Claire Hanna, who described his appointment as ‘obnoxious’, were so withering. She is a representative who knows all about obnoxiousness, judging by her behaviour since 2016.

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The minister of state explained why he voted for Boris Johnson’s withdrawal deal in 2019, despite the fact that it included a protocol that damaged the Union. The alternative, he insisted, was to split the Conservative party and usher in a Corbyn government. This decision was a ‘painful process’, but Northern Irish unionists will wonder whether the Tories’ electoral prospects were really more important than the integrity of the UK.

Some of his other comments seemed to consist of veiled warnings to the foreign office not to betray him. He spoke about the constitutional ramifications of the protocol, stressing that they needed to be considered by officials who “might otherwise do a technical negotiation.”

“I very much hope this will be heard in the foreign office,” he said later, “because I am very clear that when I was a minister before (in the Brexit department), I was removed from the negotiations and I was betrayed.”

Mr Baker is an interesting politician, with a good knowledge of Northern Ireland. He visited the province regularly to speak to NI Conservatives’ coffee mornings, long before there was any benefit to his career in coming here.

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He clearly understands that the protocol created constitutional problems as well as practical issues with trade and he seems to appreciate that checks are only a small part of what needs to be fixed.

Whether the rest of the government, including the foreign office, shares his ‘resolve’ to put these things right is one question. Whether it can persuade the EU, or even remain in place to see through the negotiation, is quite another.