Tory leadership hopefuls say they back Northern Ireland Protocol Bill but need to act on that

On these pages last week, a well informed Tory commentator said that it would be hard for contenders to replace Boris Johnson to retreat from the NI Protocol Bill.

Henry Hill said that the dynamics of the Conservative leadership contest militated against a retreat from the planned legislation.

That theory seemed to be confirmed yesterday when two moderate candidates to be the next prime minister pledged to press on with the bill.

Jeremy Hunt said: “The Northern Ireland Protocol has to change and that’s why I supported this bill.”

Tom Tugenhadt said: “I will be continuing to support all the uses of leverage that I can to make sure that the United Kingdom as an entire, whole unit remains sovereign and intact.”

This is somewhat reassuring talk because it means that leadership hopefuls feel unable to say that they would ditch the legislation. But it is still not clear that this new law is safe.

Few, if any, of the array of prospective Tory PMs has an unequivocal track record of being firm and consistent in their unionism, although all of them pay lip service to the Union.

Rishi Sunak seems the person who would be most likely to abandon the legislation, in his reported hope for good relations with the European Union. Mr Sunak, whose hopes of the top job seemed to have been sunk by the controversy over his wife’s tax affairs, is looming back into view as possible favourite for Conservative leader.

All of these politicians need to think carefully about the range of influential voices, inside government and out, who have come to explain the very serious harm that the protocol does to the integrity of the UK. Also to devolution.

The DUP is not pretending over the Irish Sea border. It becomes very hard indeed for unionists to accept devolution while the principle of consent is undermined in the way that it is by the protocol.