The in-tray of a prime minister is never empty and often overflowing, as Rishi Sunak has discovered since he moved into Number 10. Jumbo issues are circling Downing Street like planes stacking over Heathrow. There is the pressing need to resolve the strikes that have been paralysing essential public services for months. There’s the biggest conflict in Europe since 1945 and complex decisions to make about how the west can best aid the Ukrainians. There’s a looming budget that will have to be very skilfully crafted if it is not to go down badly with the public, the media and his party. Yet observers in Whitehall report that, despite all the other urgent and critical matters jostling for his attention, no issue has been devouring as much of the prime minister’s time and energy as trying to land a deal that would ease the problems with the Northern Ireland protocol.
We ought to give him a bit of credit for putting in the effort to tackle one of the most baleful consequences of Brexit, one that has destabilised Northern Ireland, disrupted its trade and aggravated its population while creating festering sores in the UK’s relationships with both the EU and the US. A success would be a feather in Mr Sunak’s cap. Not a tremendously resplendent feather, because he is trying to fix a mess of his own party’s making while offering no remedies to other negative impacts of Brexit. Nor will the mooted agreement with the EU solve all the Brexit-generated headaches with the Irish border. That said, smoothing the rough edges of the protocol would give Mr Sunak something he could claim as an important achievement. It might counter the prevailing narrative that he is a rudderless prime minister who can’t get anything difficult done and runs for the hills at the first whiff of trouble from malcontents within his party.
