Remainers won’t like it but Boris Johnson and Lord Frost are getting the better of the EU

EU proposals to improve the Northern Ireland protocol are a significant concession, writes John Rentoul

The EU has now accepted the position that the Boris Johnson’s government set out in the first place (PA)

The headlines in some of the British press are not exactly conducive to constructive negotiations. The Daily Telegraph said: “EU surrenders over British bangers sold in Northern Ireland”. The Daily Mail called it a “major climbdown”. But they are not wrong.

What is striking, reading the EU’s proposals published late last night for improving the operation of the Northern Ireland protocol, is how much they reflect how Boris Johnson always expected the rules to work. The plans suggest reducing the number of checks on goods going from the rest of the UK to Northern Ireland, by widening the list of things that will be assumed not to be “at risk” of going on to the Republic of Ireland – and therefore into the EU. A lorry containing a load of food destined for a Northern Irish supermarket will need a single food safety certificate instead of hundreds. And the EU will lift the restrictions on medicines.

All these are roughly what Johnson had in mind during the last election campaign, when he insisted that his Brexit deal did not mean a border in the Irish Sea. He has often been quoted for his emphatic statement in an interview with Sophy Ridge on Sky News during that campaign, when he said: “There is no question of there being checks on goods going NI-GB or GB-NI.” He is less often quoted for the qualification he added a few sentences later: “The only checks that there would be would be if something was coming from GB via Northern Ireland and was going on to the Republic, then there might be checks at the border into Northern Ireland.”