Caution is required over the Northern Ireland protocol – a high-stakes political game could go very wrong

Perhaps one day in the distant future, clever people at dinner parties will make witty jokes about the (by then) obscure Northern Ireland protocol, in much the same way that they recycle Lord Palmerston’s quip about the Schleswig-Holstein question. Nations once went to war over it, but as Palmerston’s saying goes, it’s so complicated that “only three men in Europe have ever understood [it]: one was Prince Albert, who is dead; the second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”

For the moment, though, no one is allowed to forget about the Northern Ireland protocol, and it is no laughing matter. Even at this early stage in its life, it has provoked disorder in the province, as well as death threats, and the prospect of a return to the Troubles. Despite everything, though, the questions the protocol has tried to answer are not so complicated as to drive anyone mad, but very simple. They are as follows: where will the economic border between the UK and EU be? What will it be like? How can it be made consistent with the Good Friday Agreement and maintain the frictionless movement of goods and people on the island of Ireland?

It is the answers, and attempted answers, to these questions that are so complicated. The protocol itself is complex. Its governing processes are also complicated, involving Westminster, Brussels, Belfast and (informally) Dublin. It has joint committees and working groups. It contains provisions for the detailed examination of consignments between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The questions were answered in the protocol. Now the British, who signed it, claim that it is being enforced too zealously through legal purism, and Lord Frost declares that “we cannot go on like this”. Unionists in Northern Ireland find it offensive and impractical. The EU says that London knew what it was signing up for, and the protocol itself is not up for renegotiation.

The good news is that neither side seems inclined to repeat past mistakes and unilaterally suspend aspects of the protocol via the notorious Article 16, which tends to wind the other side up. Currently, this is not even threatened. The preferred British tactic now is to ask for more grace periods and time to talk. The EU doesn’t wish to be seen to be unreasonable or to get the blame for a breakdown, so it gracefully consents. Thus the can is kicked down the road, as it has been ever since the 2016 referendum. The Northern Ireland protocol is a continuation of the Brexit process by other means, extended into the indefinite future.

In the high noon of Dominic Cummings in Downing Street, by his own witness, the tactic was to confuse and terrify the EU by threatening to come out with or without a deal. That was in contrast to Theresa May’s last-minute extensions and the never-ending search for compromise. The Cummings approach had the benefit of concentrating minds into forming a decision, and the Northern Ireland protocol was the result. It is, in other words, the least worst answer to the questions Brexit posed for Ireland. It remains so until Lord Frost and his colleagues publish something better.

Despite many attempts, under two prime ministers, an alternative workable, logical solution has not been found. If the British, led by Boris Johnson, secretly want an economic land border between Northern Ireland and Ireland for the first time – and want to dare Dublin and Brussels into imposing one – then they are being more reckless with peace than even Mr Cummings was.

It would also risk an all-out trade war with the EU, with all the tariffs that would follow, and a withdrawal of cooperation on the climate crisis and immigration. It is the kind of high-stakes game a compulsive political gambler such as Mr Johnson would try to pull off. That’s worrying.