This week, theĀ TimesĀ reported that Rishi Sunak has told Joe Biden that he will have resolved the current stand-off with the European Union over the situation in Northern Ireland by April.
Such a promise is a complete hostage to fortune. As regular readers of this column will know, London has a habit of setting deadlines about Ulster which come and go without serious consequence. Chris Heaton-Harris was once threatening fresh Stormont elections in October; they now won’t be until the New Year.
That means that the elections probably won’t be held until Biden’s deadline – the 25th anniversary of the Belfast Agreement – is almost up. And as noted in previous weeks, there is no guarantee an election would actually solve anything, as the Democratic Unionists would likely be returned as the largest pro-UK party and continue to have a veto on whether the Executive reforms or not.
And following Steve Baker’s ill-judged bad cop act, relations between the Government and the DUP are not great, with the latter accusing the Secretary of State of preparing dangerous concessions and refusing to stand up for Unionists (an inveterate habit of the Northern Ireland Office, it must be said).
On top of this, we now have the Prime Minister signing up to artificial deadlines imposed by a government that is entirely out of sympathy with (the existence of) the United Kingdom on the question of Ulster. He has allowed more pressure to fall on London and that will make Brussels even less likely to negotiate.
Remember, any ‘deal’ which does not involve the EU re-opening its negotiating mandate is a capitulation by Britain. Hopefully, the DUP can keep ministers honest.
Sturgeon demands referendum as she meets Sunak
A strange sort of double-mood from the first official meeting between the Prime Minister and the First Minister this week. Whilst striking her usual strident tone about a second referendum, Nicola Sturgeon nonetheless hailed the “constructive” tone of the meeting.
Perhaps because she wants even more money for the Scottish NHS – funding which obviously wouldn’t be available to the independent Scotland she also wants to deliver post-haste.
Meanwhile the various other bad news stories the First Minister is trying to escape continue to rumble on. The shortage of functioning ferries has now reached the point where some island communities are facing food shortages. Surely the British Government should be obliged to intervene in cases of such blatant failure by a delegated authority?
Elsewhere, the Scottish Government’s expanded child benefit got off to a flying start when the website crashed on day one; Ian Blackford has been urged to correct the record after trotting out his party’s nonsense renewables figures in Parliament; and Sturgeon has been strongly criticised for proposals to abolish jury trials for sexual offences.