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.
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.
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.
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.