Rishi Sunak will take the biggest political risk of his premiership so far if — as expected — he presses ahead with a plan next week to settle the bitter Brexit dispute with the EU over Northern Ireland trade.
The British prime minister is supposedly a politician defined by his caution, but he appears determined to take on Tory Eurosceptics by striking a compromise with Brussels on the Northern Ireland protocol.
“The biggest gamble of his career? It’s his first political gamble,” said Lord Peter Mandelson, former Labour Northern Ireland secretary and EU commissioner.
It will cost Sunak scarce political capital. This is, after all, a prime minister whose party is trailing the Labour opposition by 20 points and whose MPs are in state of continual unrest. Former premier Boris Johnson, who agreed the contentious protocol with Brussels, waits in the wings.
But the return on that political capital will be worth it, according to his allies. They believe a deal will end years of acrimony in UK-EU relations and provide instant economic and diplomatic wins.
Things could yet unravel. But Sunak, who travels to Munich on Saturday for some intense European diplomacy, hopes to present the deal to his cabinet next Tuesday and then to MPs.
The biggest test is whether the deal persuades the Democratic Unionist party to end its boycott of the Stormont assembly. With the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday peace agreement approaching, that would be a huge political win in itself.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP leader, said on Friday that progress had been made, but more was needed. Sunak cannot be sure what the unionists will do. “The DUP doesn’t speak with one voice,” said one British minister.
But even if the DUP blockade of Stormont remains — a scenario Sunak desperately wants to avoid — the prime minister still sees gains from a deal, even if it means a fight with Tory MPs in the pro-Brexit European Research Group.
“The ERG are a diminished force, he can afford to take them on,” said one pro-European former Tory cabinet minister. “He needs an internal party win. He can’t be seen to be pushed around by an ERG/DUP axis.” Sunak, accused of being “weak” by Labour, would be tested in the fight.
The big win, however, would be improved relations with Britain’s neighbours after years of mistrust. Sunak will discuss the diplomatic wrapper around the deal in talks with EU leaders in Munich on Saturday.
The protocol dispute soured the relationship with the bloc and has created “collateral damage”, said one EU diplomat. That includes UK membership of Horizon, the €96bn scientific research programme involving more than 40 countries, which was envisaged in the Brexit deal.
UK universities fear losing staff and falling behind the global competition if they cannot rejoin the scheme, but EU officials believe that Britain’s return to Horizon will follow a deal on the protocol.
Britain and the EU are likely to begin exploring other areas for closer co-operation, including defence and energy, which could lower prices for electricity and gas imported to the UK through seabed interconnectors.
Georgina Wright, of the Institut Montaigne think-tank in Paris, said the EU was open to these ideas. “A better relationship at the EU level opens the way for more bilateral ties. But it depends on whether the UK Conservative government wants to improve things.”
European Commission officials said trade would be smoothed if there was an atmosphere of mutual trust. The Brexit trade and co-operation deal guaranteed that the two sides would maintain a “level playing field” and consult over changes to regulations.
Meanwhile, French president Emmanuel Macron, who has taken a tough line on the protocol, hosts Sunak at a UK-France summit in Paris next month. His co-operation in tackling the flow of migrants across the English Channel is vital in helping to meet Sunak’s promise to “stop the boats”.
“The case for doing this deal and pushing it through looks overwhelming,” said Lord Kim Darroch, former British ambassador to the EU. “It will make a real, positive, difference in Northern Ireland. It will stand up Sunak’s claim to be a problem solver. It will get us back into the Horizon Europe scheme, crucial for British universities.
“It will improve UK-EU atmospherics and should open the way to further deals to free up trade and travel between the UK and EU. And it will take the brake off UK-US relations.”
Mandelson agreed, saying that a deal could open the way for US President Joe Biden to come to Belfast for events to mark the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement and then on to London for a state visit.
He said that Joe Kennedy, the scion of the Kennedy dynasty appointed by Biden as an economic envoy to Northern Ireland, would be “very important” in bringing in inward investment to the region.
In recent days Britain has been clearing up simmering disputes with the EU to try to create a fresh start in relations, seven years after the Brexit vote.
Last week the UK paid a £2.3bn fine to Brussels for carrying out lax customs checks on Chinese goods entering the EU single market while Britain was still a member of the bloc.
Meanwhile, the government also said it would make it easier for EU citizens to remain in the country, dropping a court case that had angered many of the bloc’s member states.
After the deep freeze that settled on UK-EU relations during the Johnson era, Sunak could be the British prime minister who delivers the great thaw. The prize is great, but so is the gamble.
