Thread by @jillongovt

.@jnpowell1 has written an important article in @FT (£ - I assume) about Johnson govt casual disregard for Northern Ireland ft.com/content/bb92d1…

Lots of blame attached to Frost and Johnson. But I think he could cast his net wider. As @UKandEU #Brexitwitnessarchive shows there was hardly any consideration of the consequences of a Leave vote in the decision to hold a referendum.

Read interviews here....ukandeu.ac.uk/brexit-witness…

David Cameron appointed eurosceptics as NI secretary - who did not believe there were risks because they would point out there was already a VAT/currency border and whose Brexenthusiam would outweigh them anyway

Meanwhile most of the civil service - along with other politicians - had allowed the delicate and precarious balance of the Good Friday/Belfast agreement to slip into the shadows. (same went for the devolution settlements)

Theresa May did raise concerns as Home Secretary during the campaign. But the moment she was PM she drew red lines that made a border problem inevitable - however much she committed to no hard border.

She then made matters worse by her election. Can't blame her for the losses of SDLP/Alliance seats, but she did a desperate deal with the DUP which showed she was willing to sacrifice the UK govt guardian role on the agreement for party gain.

All along the UK underestimated Ireland and EU support for Ireland. Ireland played its diplomatic hand brilliantly, had been thinking through in advance and the EU did not throw a small member state overboard as some here seemed to expect.

To be fair to May, she was forced to wake up to Northern Irish issues and by the time of Chequers, was trying to square the circle of Brexit and her commitments in the island of Ireland. But she ended up impaled on the Irish trilemma.

Boris Johnson made one good decision on Northern Ireland - the appointment of Julian Smith as NI secretary for a few months. But for the rest his government's track record has been pretty shameful as Jonathan sets out.

That is not to say the EU is blameless. The latest list of concessions from the EU show just how little thought through the imposition of an international trade border in a national economy really was.

These could - should - have been negotiated in 2020, before the Protocol took effect. But it was not the EU's Brexit. It was a UK decision to hold a referendum. not to do contingency thinking or planning.

To rush into Article 50 without a clear end point. To set red lines, without working through their implications. To reject all compromises (by both sides) in the hope of getting their pure Brexit/reversal of the decision.

To rush to get any deal to "get Brexit done". To make promises, knowingly exacerbate tensions and to suggest commitments were for mugs. Maybe the government will read Jonathan's piece and rediscover its obligations to all of Northern Ireland.

And maybe if they are watching the Blair/Brown documentary, think what the Northern Ireland episode of a documentary on Brexit might look like in 25 years time. "the hand of history..." ENDS.