Can Boris Johnson’s new plan to tear up the Northern Ireland protocol work?

A post-Brexit ceasefire, amid real war in Ukraine, is about to end – and the prime minister thinks he has a new strategy, writes Rob Merrick

Some ‘red meat’ will be needed to persuade the Democratic Unionist Party to restore power-sharing if, as expected, Sinn Fein triumphs in crucial Stormont elections on 5 May (PA)

The UK and the EU decided it was unseemly to fight over the Northern Ireland protocol when a real war erupted in Ukraine, but the ceasefire was never going to last.

Sure enough, battle is about to be waged anew, when Boris Johnson unveils his new cunning plan to torpedo the Brexit deal he negotiated and hailed as “fantastic” – before disowning it.

This time, the strategy is not simply to trigger the fabled Article 16, the threat to suspend offending parts of the protocol made, tediously, so many times last year, but never carried out.