Newsflash: might the DUP get their ass out of that political cul de sac?

Well. Just when you were about to throw up your hands and cry “The UK has gone mad as the ERG and the DUP have a strangle-hold on it, and so it will never dare accept any curb on its economic activity!” – even as your hands head heaven-wards, word comes through – they’ve done a deal.

The Independent online this morning declares “Brussels is said to have accepted a British plan that would avoid routine checks on goods moving from Great Britain into Northern Ireland”.

Which would be a clear win for the ERG/DUP – right? Um, not quite. Note that key word “routine”. So checks won’t be put in place on a regular basis on goods coming through on the green channel – but they almost certainly will be put in place occasionally. It’s like going through “Nothing to declare” at an airport. Walking the green channel is normally hassle-free, your word is accepted. But occasionally green channel walkers will be pulled in for a random check. If they didn’t, it’d mean the world and its mother could import all sorts of stuff actually heading for the EU via NEI, simply by walking through the green channel and in effect saying “Honest, gov, this consignment is due for NEI only. Now kindly step aside.”

As to the European Court of Justice, which seemed to drive the DUP mad, accustomed as they are to British justice (no, Virginia, that is not necessarily a contradiction in terms), the word is the ECJ would only swing into action if recommended to do so by the courts of NEI.

It must be stressed there are voices cited which disagree that the deal is done – there’s a lot more spadework needed, they say. But if the initial reports of success are true, will the DUP accept them? Will they pass the DUP’s seven demands?

The answer to that is, it will if the DUP figures this is as far as they’ll get and that they can stomach going back into Stormont with a Shinner First Minister. They might well do – their supporters may go with the present refusal to re-enter government,  but just about everybody else thinks that even if they want to appear the hardest, baddest Brexit guys on the block, the DUP will also see that their placing NEI in an induced coma is beginning to play very badly, even with their own horny-handed supporters.

Nothing is inevitable in life except death and taxes, but it looks as though the DUP reckon its time to back out of the political cul-de-sac in which  they’ve had their sit-down. Cul-de-sacs take you nowhere, and sitting down in them can give you political piles.

One Response to Newsflash: might the DUP get their ass out of that political cul de sac?

  1. Paul woods February 2, 2023 at 10:08 am #

    Nailed it Jude