Big win for the DUP or bigger win for the UK and the EU? A lot of details that will have to be worked out and how will they work in practice and some carrots and sticks to entice/force the DUP back into the Assembly and Executive.
In some ways what has been agreed is - at least in terms of the big picture, remarkably thin. Green and red lanes is an interesting idea - one does have to wonder why for the DUP that doesn't constitute a radical distinction between the parts of the UK given their complaints of anything that suggests different treatment of the North. Then there's the emergency brake that the Assembly will have where it can have changes to EU rules and the UK government can veto them (though there's some confusion about that last). The UK government now returns to the position prior to the Protocol where it sets VAT in Northern Ireland. And there's the Horizon programme which once the deal is up and running will restart.
Yet opposition was muted last night. Once all is read that may well change. And with wearying predictability yet again the Tories (or some of their number) launch themselves across this island, figuratively speaking, in order to fight their own battles.
the former culture secretary Nadine Dorries hit out at Baker for "gushing about the deal", claiming he was a "key agitator" who helped to remove Johnson from Downing Street last July. She said: "What shred of credibility he has left would be destroyed if he came out against Sunak. He has nowhere else to go other than to grin and support."
So even now it's more about point-scoring and score-settling for some. Really Unionism should take a long hard look at the centre to which it asserts its loyalty, not in the sense of abandoning its loyalty but having a more pragmatic approach to living on, well to coin a phrase, a shared island and what that means. Just on that last I've seen some commentary suggesting the DUP was right to 'hold out' for a better dispensation. I'd be deeply unconvinced of that, not least because the supposed changes in this iteration in no sense appear to be worth the political dislocation generated by their unwillingness to re-enter the Assembly or Executive, not to mention the palpable distaste for accepting a Sinn Féin First Minister and indeed the increasing noises and manifestations of paramilitary activity during this period.
The real question is is this thing going to fly?
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