UK foreign secretary warns unionists to be careful what they wish for because re-opening Windsor Framework EU negotiations could leave UK with worse deal

Mr Cleverly, giving evidence at a committee on the Protocol in the House of Lords today, warned that “both sides of the negotiation have agency,” and that any rejigged variant of the Windsor Framework may not lead to more concessions – and could lead to the opposite.

Unionists have been holding out for the EU to buckle and acede to their demands for the Windsor Framework – unveiled on February 27 – to be reworked again to remove any portions of the deal which distance Northern Ireland from Great Britain.

The framework itself was the product of months of negotiations with the EU to alter the Northern Ireland Protocol, which dated back to autumn 2019, and entered force on January 1, 2021.

The EU had previously said it would not renegotiate the Protocol, and unionists who are dissatisfied with the Windsor Framework have taken this as a sign that if they apply enough pressure, they can get the framework renegotiated too.

More at these links:

• February 2023: Northern Ireland Protocol: What has the DUP reaction been so far to the Prime Minister's 'Windsor Framework'?

• March 2023: Sir Jeffrey Donaldson says ‘more work needed’ on Windsor Framework as DUP calls on public to submit their views

Mr Cleverly told the commitee today: “The reason why I said no to renegotiation is because we got movement from the [European] Commission that for many, many years the commission told us were impossible.

"The starting point from their position was the Protocol is fine, the UK just needs to get on and implement it.

"Over time that shifted... finally in the negotiations we got to to the position were the commission accepted we had to disapply EU laws, we had to make some really funadamental changes, and these were all things which at the start of the negotiation they said were not going to be possible.

"So we travelled a huge distance with regard to our negotiations, and the idea somehow there was a significantly or even subtly better deal just over the horizon I think is wrong.”

He said it was not only the UK side which was feeling the pressure to wring concessions out of the EU, but the same political dynamics applied in Brussels too.

“I think sometimes we always assume that political risk sits only on the UK side of the negotiating table. I think they [the EU] made some really bold choices,” he said.

"If we re-open negotiations, there's certainly no guarantee we'd just get more movement from the EU.

"It may be entirely feasible. But their hinterland would say: ‘Oh hang, on a second – if you're renegotiating with the Brits, we want you to negotiate this thing back off of the table’.

"Both sides of the negotiation have agency.”

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