Politics news – latest: ‘Hugely disappointing’ if DUP don’t return to Stormont, Cleverly says – as Rishi Sunak in Belfast to sell deal

Sunak’s sales pitch awkwardly highlights the shortcomings of Johnson’s ‘oven ready’ Brexit

There has been no word as yet from Boris Johnson, after a warm reception in Westminster yesterday for Rishi Sunak’s new Brexit deal – the Windsor Framework.

MP after MP, Labour, Conservative and SNP lined up to congratulate the prime minister as he presented it to the Commons yesterday.

There were some pointed questions from DUP MPs and the chairman of the ERG Brexiteers, Mark Francois, about whether it contained any nasty surprises in the small print, but not an outright rejection – no mean feat for a prime minister who has inherited a party riven by factions.

Promising to “scrap” customs checks on goods heading from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, take back powers to Westminster over VAT and state aid, and give Stormont politicians a “brake” on EU law seemed to hit the mark for many on the key issues of trade, sovereignty and consent.

Unionists are digesting the detail, and the prime minister may meet with Northern Ireland politicians in Belfast today after taking questions from business representatives.

Mr Sunak perhaps couldn’t resist borrowing an old phrase yesterday when he said the UK had now finally “taken back control”. But the success of the negotiation does awkwardly draw attention to the setbacks in the protocol originally agreed by Boris Johnson in 2020.

A social media graphic tweeted by Tory MPs this morning highlighted a list of problems which had been “fixed”, including reduced choice in shops, unnecessary bureaucracy and the automatic application of EU law.

That is a far cry from how Boris Johnson sold his “oven ready” deal back in 2019, as “a good arrangement… with the minimum possible bureaucratic consequences.”

Many Brexiteers have argued privately and publicly that there was a need to get an EU trade deal done with the clock ticking. They say the EU also interpreted it in ways the UK hadn’t expected – arguing that a catalogue of checks were needed to protect the single market, which have now been swept away.

Rishi Sunak was clear that staying in the EU single market, as well as the UK internal market, is good for Northern Ireland, and it would be in an “incredibly attractive” position to attract inward investment.

This is another shift in tone, from when cabinet ministers spoke of Belfast being “trapped” in EU trade rules. Big businesses like supermarkets, who have not always had Downing Street’s ear, can now be the government’s allies in talking up the benefits of the agreement.

So, for now it looks like a negotiating success which has taken Rishi Sunak out of Boris Johnson’s shadow. But with all parties now digesting the agreement’s details and asking questions about how long these arrangements will take to get up and running, there may still be a rocky road ahead.