Goods and issues which pose the most pressing concerns have been addressed first, but the same framework provides a basis for future agreement in other areas.
By overselling what it has achieved, the Government risks setting unrealistic expectations and limiting its future room for manoeuvre.
Nearly seven years after the campaign, we are finally moving towards the kind of deal we might have had all along had we never joined.
Like the SNP, the EU are often an overtly hostile negotiating partner. They will take whatever ground he gives up and come back for more.
It would be unwise to scupper a deal on data which would allow hands-off, targeted enforcement and free local and mainland-facing Ulster businesses from EU control.
The most likely way through this impasse is a new agreement, sitting on top of the existing Protocol and introducing a new set of principles on how it operates. Such an agreement must preserve Northern Ireland’s constitutional status.
Getting Stormont up and running for the Belfast Agreement’s anniversary in April seems to be setting the pace, but only the DUP can make that happen.
The Foreign Secretary might be inclined to roll over, as he is on the British Indian Ocean Territory, but he can’t order Stormont back to its feet.
The most likely-looking outcome, at this point, is the same one which has marked the entire process: another deadline from the Government coming and going.
Growing tensions with Turkey risk Ankara once again lifting border controls and placing huge pressure on the European frontier.
Italy heads to the polls on Sunday. It is likely to be another illustration of the uneasy relationship between the country’s volatile democratic politics and the strictures of Brussels’ political and economic orthodoxy.
I would have preferred a negotiated solution to the sea border, but in the face of EU intransigence the new prime minister must protect the Union.
The Party’s internationalist-minded Left talks the rebellious talk, but is less ready to walk the walk.
The Northern Ireland Protocol has been a stone in the shoe of our relations with Brussels and Washington. The Prime Minister deserves great credit for making progress.