1. Today’s deal marks a huge change in the priorities of the Conservative Party. In the early Nineties, when Euroscepticism was born, such treatment of Northern Ireland would have been unthinkable.
2. Tory memories of the Brighton bomb and the assassination of Airey Neave and Ian Gow were still personal and vivid. All MPs had seen the horrific cost of sectarian conflict. Making NI a diplomatic chip would have been unthinkable.
3. But, the better part of three decades on, the party’s priorities have changed dramatically. Brexit matters MUCH more to today’s Tories than the survival of the Union. On which basis, a customs border between Britain and NI is acceptable.
4. That this involves a huge breach of endless undertakings to the people of NI is neither here nor there to Johnson. Eggs had to be broken to make the omelette of a deal and an eventual Tory election victory.
5. It is a lousy deal. But Johnson has weaponised boredom and impatience. ‘Get Brexit Done’ has harnessed contemporary attention deficit, based on the entirely misleading notion that Brexit will be done and dusted on October 31 and we can all ‘move on’.
6. Not so at all. But the choreography by Number Ten has been brilliant: nail-biting drama, a supposed triumph, crushing pressure on the Commons to get on with it, vote against delay, liberate us all from the water torture of the last three years.
7. What every MP must ask themselves on Saturday is: where does true statesmanship lie? Is this deal really in the UK’s strategic, commercial and public interest? Is convenience the same as merit? It’s up to them now. ENDS
