The Conservative party long ago stopped listening to Theresa May, but that doesn’t mean her view counts for nothing. When she warns, as she did earlier this week, that the unilateral abandonment of the Northern Ireland protocol would damage the UK’s international reputation, she speaks with the authority of a former prime minister whose time in office was consumed by the attempt to get a workable Brexit agreement.
She failed. But so, it turns out, did her successor. If Boris Johnson’s deal had met the durability test, he would not now be getting ready to renege on it.
