Nationalism would have let the DUP baby have its bottle, except the SDLP threw the toys out

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) is fortunate nationalism is not laughing openly at the party’s deal with the British government.

It is not just that the deal’s sea border aspects are “the Windsor Framework in drag”, to quote the Belfast Telegraph’s Sam McBride.

Half of the 80-page command paper contains broader ideas for “Safeguarding the Union” – the deal’s title – that invite ridicule.

Some are sensible enough in themselves, such as strengthening commercial and cultural links between Britain and Northern Ireland. However, they are copied from the 2020 New Decade, New Approach deal to restore Stormont and have already proved a flop.

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Others are lifted from the 2021 Union Connectivity Review, the infrastructure report that famously did not recommend a bridge to Scotland but still became a bit of a joke.

The red meat for unionism in the command paper is undercooked. A 2018 statutory duty to protect the “all-island economy” is being repealed, but this was superseded by the Brexit protocol two years later. The legislation is just being tidied up.

There is a statement that “on the basis of all recent polling, the government sees no realistic prospect of a Border poll”.

This is a mere observation, consistent with the Belfast Agreement. The acknowledgment of opinion polls as a decisive factor is something unionism might regret.

One genuine achievement is letting Northern Ireland benefit more from UK trade deals. This has been agreed by the UK-EU joint committee of the Windsor Framework. It was announced on Tuesday last week by the European Commission and appeared in the command paper the following day. Approval by EU members should be a formality.

This obvious choreography is a double-edged sword for the DUP, showing unionism played a role in nudging Brussels but also showing the role Brussels has in Northern Ireland.

DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson announced the deal was done last Tuesday, a day before it was published. Mary Lou McDonald gave Sinn Féin’s response.

“We have been in close contact with both governments, and indeed with Brussels. We are satisfied that no part of the Good Friday Agreement has been undermined or damaged. We also know that Brussels, Dublin, all parties are satisfied that what has been agreed stays between the hedges of Brussels and the European market and also the concerns that the DUP expressed. All of that has been accommodated and worked on painstakingly.”

Sinn Féin was gently downplaying the deal, without undermining the DUP to an irresponsible extent. McDonald might not have seen the command paper but she appeared to be alluding to more than the technical decision on trade deals.

Sinn Féin had been referring for months to being briefed by London. McDonald’s final mention of talks with London, Dublin and Brussels took the edge off complaints from almost everyone, her own party included, about unorthodox bilateral talks between the British government and the DUP.

Tánaiste Michael Martin arrived in Belfast the following day, last Wednesday, with more soothing words. He said “advocacy from unionism paid dividends” and “we are confident and we have been assured that there is nothing in these papers that would undermine the architecture of the Good Friday Agreement”.

Nationalism was clearly preparing to let the DUP baby have its bottle – until the SDLP threw its toys out of the pram. The next day, last Thursday, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood rose in the House of Commons and denounced the command paper for undermining the Belfast Agreement and “the principle of rigorous impartiality”, going “far too far in the direction of the DUP’s thinking”.

DUP MPs were so delighted they spontaneously cheered. Sinn Féin was the real victim of a nationalist critique of the deal.

The Taoiseach was soon echoing SDLP language. On the day Eastwood spoke, Varadkar said the European Commission would have “some questions” about the command paper, but neither he nor the commission saw any “red flags”.

By Friday, he said the deal “crossed no red lines” but “I don’t like the negative language about the All-Ireland economy and I think it very much puts the British government in the place of being advocates of the Union, whereas in the past they’d signed up to rigorous impartiality”.

The term “rigorous impartiality” in the Belfast Agreement refers to the administration of Northern Ireland. It does not require the UK to be neutral on its own existence.

By Monday, the British and Irish governments had to deny Varadkar and British prime minister Rishi Sunak were avoiding each other as they visited Stormont.

A meeting and some conciliatory statements patched over a rift that had been as much about politicking within nationalism as between London and Dublin. The DUP had been caught in the middle. With a Sinn Féin First Minister and an SDLP leader of the opposition, unionism may get used to it.