Rishi Sunak is about to ‘get Brexit done’ – but he still can’t win

Editorial: As leader of his party, the prime minister has little choice but to try to lead it

His party should be celebrating his achievement, yet all Rishi Sunak hears is whingeing (Getty)

Rishi Sunak, barely three months into the job and already the subject of plots to undermine him, must be wondering what he’s done wrong.

According to reports, and the unusually visible signs of progress on the Northern Ireland protocol, the prime minister is about to “get Brexit done” at last. Where Theresa May, Boris Johnson and Liz Truss stumbled, dissembled and failed, Mr Sunak has prevailed. He is, it appears, within reach of finally completing the negotiations on the UK’s withdrawal from the EU that began more than six years ago.

Tired as everyone is of it, there should be some sense of exhilaration, or at least relief, at this imminent diplomatic breakthrough. To get anything like the implementation of the protocol agreed and placed on a sustainable footing, with significant concessions by the EU, is as big a constructive achievement as virtually anything the Conservatives have managed in recent years.

Mr Sunak’s ministers and backbenchers should be giving him three cheers, banging the desk lids at meetings of the 1922 Committee, and rushing to the studios to praise him. With the protocol and Brexit “done”, a new era of cordial relations beckons. It should unlock closer cooperation with the EU on security, advanced research (including the Horizon programme), migration, and much else.

Yet all Mr Sunak hears is whingeing. All he sees are unattributed briefings in the media about rebellions; more than a hundred Tories willing to reject his hard-won deal. “Brexiteer” ministers – as if there is any other variety these days – are said to be on the verge of quitting and “on resignation watch”.

The Democratic Unionists have been handed a veto on the UK’s relationship with the EU by their allies in the Conservative Party, even though some of those allies, such as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Theresa Villiers, betrayed the DUP when they happily went along with Mr Johnson’s “oven-ready deal”, which included the protocol, back in 2019. Memories, as well as tempers, seem short in Westminster.

Open dissent has reached cabinet level. Suella Braverman, like Mr Johnson, wants Mr Sunak to keep the Northern Ireland Protocol Bill, currently paused in parliament, on permanent standby, as a deterrent to the EU and a weapon in future talks. Penny Mordaunt says Mr Johnson’s intervention on the issue is “not entirely unhelpful”.

There are numerous arguments against that. With an agreement in place, the bill is redundant. Aside from that, it poisons relations, it’s unlawful as a unilateral breach of a treaty, and it would hurt the UK more than the EU by inviting retaliatory tariffs. It’s another unuseable Boris Brexit bluff.

It may be that the rebellion on the protocol deal will be so formidable that Mr Sunak will need Labour to help him gain parliamentary approval, and a Commons vote of some sort does seem inevitable, given the salience of the issue.

In a nightmarish scenario for Mr Sunak, two former prime ministers, Mr Johnson and Ms Truss, would lead the resistance, with the support of the Tories’ innumerable parliamentary factions. It might also serve as a convenient opportunity for disaffected backbenchers to protest about migrant policy and taxes. Mr Sunak might have to weather the resignation of Ms Braverman, or even Ms Mordaunt, and perhaps other ministers. It would amount to a leadership crisis.

Yet as leader of his party, Mr Sunak has little choice but to try to lead it. He simply cannot allow his critics, or the DUP, to push him around because it would mean his leadership being over almost before it has begun, in which case he might as well quit. No doubt Mr Sunak will be embarrassed, as prime minister, to have to rely on opposition votes in the Commons, but there are precedents – David Cameron, John Major and Tony Blair all had to so in their time, and all survived.

Besides, the position of the parliamentary Conservative Party and the DUP, whatever the merits of their case, is a poor reflection of public opinion in Great Britain – and in Northern Ireland for that matter. Most people would dearly love never to have to hear about the protocol again. If Mr Sunak does deliver, the nation will be grateful.