Rishi Sunak’s uphill struggle to make Brexit work in Northern Ireland

The sense of déjà vu has been unavoidable this week. Rishi Sunak, the prime minister, has been grappling with the hardest problem created by Britain’s decision to leave the EU in 2016—the status of Northern Ireland. His efforts have prompted predictable opposition, from hardline Brexiteers in Westminster and from unionists in the province. As The Economist went to press, Mr Sunak’s proposed deal to revise the Northern Ireland protocol was hanging in the balance and with it, the prospects for effective government on either side of the Irish Sea.

The protocol was concocted by Boris Johnson in 2019. It left the province in the European single market for goods and required checks for products crossing the Irish Sea from Great Britain. In protest at this forced separation, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the main unionist (pro-British) party, pulled out of the Northern Irish executive in February 2022. It said it would not return unless the protocol was in effect scrapped. The DUP’s intransigence was bolstered last May when Mr Johnson himself proposed a bill to allow Britain to unilaterally override the protocol if the EU did not soften it. He also demanded that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) lose any jurisdiction in the province. Relations between Britain and the EU markedly soured.