Start with the positives, for they are hard to dispute. The new Northern Ireland plan unpicks some of the economic and political damage inflicted by Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. It makes the return of devolved power-sharing government possible. It ends the DUP’s two-year democracy boycott. It compels the rival parties to work together again, in line with the 1998 Belfast Good Friday agreement. It also releases a £3.3bn sweetener from the UK Treasury that Northern Ireland’s battered public realm badly needs.
All of that is long overdue. But is it really a new dawn in the north? Some have been seduced into describing this week’s deal in these terms. Maybe they will be proved right. Let us hope so. But the evidence is still only thin, and there is a long way to go before the “up and running” cliche is truly accurate.
