Will Boris Johnson keep the dispute over the Northern Ireland protocol going until the next general election?

Boris Johnson appears to have decided that there is nothing quite like a good row with the EU. More than two years on from signing his “oven-ready” agreement – the one he “whacked in the microwave” to get Brexit done – the PM has decided it’s worth poking holes in the thing and reheating the row all over again.

The former Northern Ireland secretary Peter Hain has warned that Johnson is staging a “Putinesque” bust-up to keep his Brexiteer base happily, helpfully irate with the “old villain Brussels”.

The idea that the protocol bill is a convenient distraction for No 10 is not exactly new. But Lord Hain thinks we’ve underestimated the long-term thinking of Johnson, who has been in day-to-day survival mode for many months.

The senior New Labour-era figure thinks the PM will try to keep the dispute with the EU over the protocol going “all the way to the next general election” if he can.

Is such a scheme possible? Could the beleaguered Conservative Party leader really go into the next general election campaign in 2023 or 2024 promising to get “Get Brexit (without the protocol) Done”?

Let’s leave aside the question of whether Johnson could survive possible further efforts from Tory backbenchers to get rid of him. If he does survive into 2023, the protocol quarrel will likely still be rumbling on.

Tory MP Bob Neil suggested on Monday that his colleagues will want to argue out the legality of the “very risky” bill in the Commons. And peers will certainly delay it from becoming law for quite some time – possibly up to a year.

The EU is likely to hold off on any serious trade retaliation until the bill is passed into law. European Commission chiefs may soon start discussing which forms of trade war they are prepared to live with in the years ahead. But it’s possible the whole row could be kept in suspended animation until at least next summer.

So if Johnson does decide to call an election next May, a promise to ditch those protocol checks could form part of a manifesto pitch.

Even if Johnson and his team opt to wait until the spring of 2024 to go to the polls, it’s possible the UK and EU will have agreed to enter new talks aimed at reaching a compromise, with implementation of the protocol law “frozen” by ongoing legal action.

No 10 strategist David Canzini is said to be very keen on pushing “wedge” issues as hard as possible. And Brexit, of course, remains extremely wedgy with voters.

But there is risk in trying to provoke and prolong Brexit-related problems. The DUP’s recent defeat to Sinn Fein in the Northern Ireland election is one indication that even Brexiteers are tiring of hardline stances over practical solutions.

Brexit has not been a happy hunting ground for Labour. But it looks like the party will be able to point to the government’s unresolved mess and raise the unappealing prospect of a forever trade war with the EU if the Tories win again.

The prime minister has been tempted into making a meal out of Brexit one more time. But he may discover you can get too much of a bad thing.