Some curious noises out of London this past weekend over the NI Protocol and matters relating to Ireland, the EU and Brexit. Why did Steve Baker apologise in the following terms.
Steve Baker – arch Brexiter and one of the Conservative party's fiercest campaigners to get the UK out of the EU – has apologised to Ireland and Brussels for the way he and some of his colleagues behaved over the past six years.
Baker told the Tory party conference that he and others in the party had not shown respect to the "legitimate interests" of Ireland or the EU during the campaign to leave the bloc.
The Northern Ireland minister said it was time to rebuild the UK's relations with Ireland and make sure the two countries went forward as "closest partners and friends".
It's not that he's wrong, it is just that an apology from him? Perhaps because there's movement?
The transformation into Baker, the peacemaker, will astound many among the Conservatives, and others in the UK, Ireland and the EU who watched the ERG attempts to finalise Brexit under Theresa May's government...
Baker's words suggest that Liz Truss has relegated the row over the Northern Ireland protocol and perhaps was rowing back on her threat to bring in new laws to unilaterally tear up part of the withdrawal agreement.
That said behind all this one still hits the same impasse:
But he said that the EU and Ireland should not underestimate the UK's determination to get rid of the trade barriers that had been erected on goods going between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.
"The counterpoint of that [humility] is resolve. No one should underestimate our resolve, this government's resolve, to get progress on the protocol
"It is not acceptable that Northern Ireland is so separate from GB," he said.
There is no reason why an Northern Ireland Assembly and Executive should not be re-established at Stormont now, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has said.
Ms Truss has also said that she wants a settlement with the EU over the Northern Ireland Protocol which "works for everybody".
Newton Emerson in the IT had some good points last week where he noted this is a difficult point for Unionism, and particularly the DUP. Having lashed themselves so publicly to the Tories the subsequent implosion of that party is deeply problematic for them, and those events impact on the room for movement for the Tory leadership too.
Truss cannot plausibly hold Europe's feet to the fire in the next four weeks with her government an international laughing stock. She will have greater difficulty ramming the Bill through Westminster as her authority wanes, especially if the Bill is portrayed as further weakening the UK's economic reputation.
In Washington last week, Truss's team dropped hints of a longer time-frame to resolve the protocol and restore devolution by next April, the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement. Although there is frustration among other Stormont parties at stretching limbo out to placate the DUP, this is a more realistic deadline than October. As of this week, the first question it raises is whether Truss will still be prime minister by then.
Truss and her chancellor, Kwazi Kwarteng, give every appearance of planning to hang on and not reverse course. A battle-weary Tory party could feel it has little choice but to stand by them, unless MPs fancy an Edwin Poots-style humiliation or a rout in a general election.
Well, as we now know they didn't hang on entirely - with a market-soothing reversal of the abolition of the top rate of income tax. But, and this point was made in comments yesterday, most of the rest of what Truss and Kwarteng introduced in the dismal budget that wasn't a budget remains.
And Emerson makes a, frankly, excellent point here:
Few people have a national allegiance fluid enough to be swayed by a poor government or economy, yet in the North's finely balanced demographics, their number could be suspected as decisive.
There will certainly be an increase in unionist anxiety and nationalist frustration. The Irish Government will have to decide how to approach this as it faces an electoral challenge from Sinn Féin.
Fading nationalist patience with the union will be a test for the Coalition's shared island policy and the standard methods of the peace process, such as the Stormont talks Truss expects London and Dublin to oversee by next April.
And:
The long-term impact of this week could be Labour in power for a generation, just as 13 years of New Labour followed when the Tories last lost their economic reputation.
This would be a mixed blessing for unionism. While a Labour government would greatly reduce the prospect of Scottish independence and calm nerves in Northern Ireland, Labour is instinctively sympathetic to Irish unity.
The party is considering intriguing constitutional reforms, including proportional representation and replacing the House of Lords with a chamber of the regions and nations. These could have profound political ramifications in Northern Ireland.
What Labour is not considering is reversing Brexit. But if it has years in power to mitigate Brexit, and build a healthier relationship with the EU, that would be as good an outcome for the whole of Ireland as is likely for the foreseeable future.
In a way by betting the house on the Tories the DUP took a huge risk. That the Tories have proven ever increasingly more inept (as noted yesterday) can come as no comfort to them. What's curious is that they didn't seek to reverse course even slightly as soon as that was apparent. And where has it led them? Their sponsor in London is as Emerson notes 'an international laughing stock', their sponsors power and authority visibly ebbing away. Anyone who recalls the last couple of years of the Major administration will recall what it is like to be in power but to be close to losing it. That may well be the fate of the Tories. Even tactically making encouraging noises about Ireland is probably a benefit to them. Whether there is much more to it than that, well, we'll see.
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