Brexit border row is another little DUP victory on road to defeat

A common criticism of the DUP is that it is all tactics and no strategy. That mix of strength and weakness has been on full display over the past week.

Last Thursday, the London Times reported that regulatory convergence would be the British government's big idea to address the Brexit border.

The DUP came back immediately with a range of responses. Sammy Wilson MP, a former Stormont finance minister although not a leadership figure, warned any move to “placate Dublin” by treating Northern Ireland “differently than the rest of the UK” would imperil the DUP-Tory deal at Westminster.

Party leader Arlene Foster said the DUP would “not countenance any arrangement that could lead to a new border being created in the Irish Sea”, adding that London shared this position and “we are in constant contact on these issues with the government.”

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Her deputy Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s leader at Westminster, gave a BBC interview listing customs union membership and tariffs as unacceptable aspects of any sea border.

“I am confident this will not happen,” he concluded – and no wonder, as regulatory convergence is about the exact opposite: leaving the customs union while avoiding a sea border.

With different party figures objecting to slightly different things, each of those things slightly different to what had been reported in the Times, the negotiating table was clearly being set for fudge.

Responding to Wilson’s remarks, Sinn Féin accused the DUP of “bluffing”.

It seems implausible that unionists would risk putting Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street but what if the bluff was not aimed at the British government?

Suspicions were voiced that the DUP was bluffing its own voters. Having scared them with a sea border, anything less painful could be portrayed as a victory for DUP influence.

Relatively painless

Lo and behold, the deal almost announced this Monday in Brussels should have been relatively painless from a unionist perspective.

What has been lost in the noise since the DUP pulled the plug is how little regulatory convergence it might take to square Northern Ireland’s Brexit circle.

A draft of the UK-EU deal promised “no divergence” from single market and customs union rules but only “in the absence of agreed solutions” and in “support of North-South co-operation and the protection of the Good Friday Agreement”.

That 1998 agreement lists just 12 areas of North-South policy co-operation, only one of which – agriculture – is critically affected by those rules.

The list is so limited that by Monday afternoon, London was reportedly offering to extend convergence to the entire United Kingdom. “No divergence” was also changed to “regulatory alignment”, implying parallel UK and EU systems.

The reference to “agreed solutions” meant even this could be finessed sector by sector in subsequent trade talks.

Pressure on Sinn Féin

As a bonus, the relevant regulatory powers were to be devolved, putting intense pressure on Sinn Féin to restore Stormont.

Reaction in Northern Ireland as the details leaked out was amazement at what DUP influence had apparently achieved, followed by incredulity as the party seemingly disowned its own triumph.

However, this was just more hardball negotiating. The DUP’s fresh concern on Monday was that rushed presentation and reporting had made the deal look painful to unionists.

Having decided to stall for more clarity, the DUP might as well hang on to see what else it can get. This could continue until the December 14th Brexit summit, if not beyond. Experience at Stormont and latterly Westminster has taught the DUP to blink last in negotiations, no matter how grand its opponents. Monday’s deadline was artificial, as the EU promptly demonstrated by moving it.

But while the DUP’s tactics are masterful, what is its strategy?

What does it want for Northern Ireland beyond maintaining the union and what does it want from Brexit beyond trite hopes for “success”? The party can barely outline a vision for this to its own supporters, let alone to a wider society.

Even the apparently big-picture triumph of resolving Brexit through regulation is simply fire-fighting, forced upon it by backing Brexit in the first place – a position it took believing the EU referendum would not pass, allowing it to engage in some recreational British nationalism without a care to how that would play with the rest of Northern Ireland.

Now Brexit is happening the DUP cares even less, defending its shrinking laager with increasing stridency. It moves forward with little victories, yet is turning a ratchet against the very future of the union with every disregard it shows to its Irish constituents.

If it plans to be more conciliatory once the crisis has passed, it has laid no perceptible groundwork.

For a movement steeped in Presbyterianism, the DUP is oddly inclined to live in the moment. It may enjoy its moments while they last.