Thread by @DavidHenigUK

What just happened on the Northern Ireland protocol is what keeps happening and will keep happening because it is the least bad mutual outcome. The UK did not get anywhere with a renegotiation on fundamentals and the EU had to flex on some specific issues.

https://twitter.com/tconnellyRTE/status/1410275383375769608

The UK government believes that even without alignment there should be no checks on goods movements between UK and EU via Northern Ireland, but the EU and US disagree and will continue to do so. Two years of repeated attempts by the Johnson government have got nowhere.

There's no real pressure on the UK to move away from a failed position as the media and influential Brexit supporters are quite happy to blame the May administration and / or the EU for Johnson's failure. Handy really.

Meanwhile the EU (but mainly France) don't really want to have to give all these small concessions to the UK over the Northern Ireland protocol, but to keep the negotiating high ground including US support they have to do so, given the UK won't align.

For how long will the EU and UK be stuck over the Northern Ireland protocol? Given two years and counting since Johnson became PM, what is going to change? Particularly as the EU has zero respect for the UK leads, and believe that to be reciprocal.

IIRC it was @hayward_katy who made the analogy of Northern Ireland in Brexit as the child of divorcing parents. Well the divorce happened but the parents simply moved to separate rooms of the same house, leaving the kids room shared.

July is simply too sensitive a time for both sides, and August will be holiday time, so we'll go round the same loop again from September. Hard to see right now what can move us on from that./ end