Brexit: Democratic Unionist Party Won't Compromise on Northern Ireland

Facts

• Reports have emerged that a deal may soon be struck over the Northern Ireland Protocol after a meeting was held on Friday between UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and leaders from Northern Ireland's (NI's) Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Féin in Belfast.¹
• Speaking to reporters following the meeting, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson indicated that the party will not compromise on its Brexit red lines. 'Progress has been made across a range of issues,' Donaldson said while affirming that further work is required.²
• The NI Protocol has been a thorn in the side of consecutive governments since the UK voted to leave the EU in 2016. Signed as part of the Brexit deal, it avoids the imposition of a hard trade border between NI and the Republic of Ireland — which is still part of the trading bloc.³
• Amid speculation over Sunak's meetings in Stormont (the NI assembly), a spokesperson for Downing Street has said, 'whilst talked [sic] with the EU are ongoing, ministers continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure any solution fixes the practical problems on the ground.' In another seemingly positive step, Foreign Sec. James Cleverly is set to travel to Brussels to meet European Commission Vice President Maros Sefcovic.⁴
• Political tensions over the fallout from Brexit remain high in NI, after former UK PM Boris Johnson's original protocol splintered unionist and republican groups, leaving the nation without a functioning government for a year. The DUP are maintaining any new deal must meet seven key criteria; Sunak must also unify Conservative members of parliament behind the deal.⁵
• If the Prime Minister can garner support for the deal from the DUP, it could be presented to the cabinet as early as next Tuesday before being laid out in the House of Commons. Opposition Labour leader Kier Starmer has pledged his party's support for any deal that could resolve ongoing trade disputes.⁶

Sources: ¹BBC News, ²The telegraph, ³The times, ⁴Sky news, ⁵Guardian and ⁶The week uk.

Narratives

• Right narrative, as provided by The telegraph. The unity of the Conservative Party is at stake in the quality of the deal Sunak puts forward to the Commons. It would greatly benefit the Prime Minister to find a quick and easy solution to immediate problems to foster closer ties with the EU, but any settlement that fails to solve all of the issues in this complex predicament will doom the Tories to decades of irresolvable friction within their ranks and endless conflict between the UK and the rest of Europe. No deal is better than a bad one.
• Left narrative, as provided by Guardian. Although agreement on a new NI Protocol may seem like a leap forward in the Brexit process, even the best version of the deal will not change the fact that generations of Conservative party leaders have driven the UK's relationship with the EU into a dead-end. Johnson took electoral advantage of the situation, but merely fixing the NI Protocol will go almost nowhere to restoring trust between any British government and the EU bloc. The problems facing Sunak are greater than any single deal with the DUP.

Predictions