Mr. Rory Montgomery:

For these purposes it does not matter because the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty is that more recent legislation supersedes previous legislation. I think we can leave the Act of Union to one side, thank God. We will maybe leave the Government of Ireland Act out of it as well. That ruling is interesting. I do not know but I imagine the reaction from those who took the case will be to say that this does not solve their particular political problems, that this is a court operating within certain parameters and so on. There is a future question as well regarding the extent to which Britain and the EU will diverge in future regulation. If the regulations relevant to the movement of goods around the Single Market apply to Northern Ireland, then that does potentially widen the gap.

There is a democratic deficit question as well. I would not say Northern Ireland officials or members of the Assembly were very influential in the making of EU legislation but now they will not even have a formal role. That is one of the things that may be looked at as a kind of accompaniment to a core deal. Maroš Šefovi has been at pains to say that, above all, he wants to solve practical problems. He has talked to businesses in Northern Ireland and from what Mr. Connelly says, it sounds as if they have gone a long way towards accommodating that. In a way you might say in brackets that greater flexibility earlier in the process might have been helpful but it is easy to be wise after the event. Having said all that, I think there was a possibility that the DUP under Arlene Foster could have eventually found its way to live with the protocol. She at one stage talked about Northern Ireland having the best of both worlds and making the best of it, etc. However, Boris Johnson was already willingly causing mischief about the protocol from the very beginning. Even though it was quickly resolved, the very brief evocation of Article 16 of the protocol with regard to medicines in Northern Ireland gave those who were opposed to it something to hang on to. Unfortunately, the reality is that unionist opposition to the protocol is extremely hard and it has hardened over time. Again you could ask if this is a reflection of real interests or a question of what has been said by leaders to followers. It is unrealistic to expect unionists to be more moderate than the British Government and for a long period with Johnson and Truss that was the situation they were in.

Although there should not be another Assembly election for some years, local elections will occur in the spring and it looks as if the DUP is not suffering electorally in opinion polls from its stance. If anything, the pressure from the TUV is greater than the pressure from the moderate side of the UUP etc. My assumption is that Jeffrey Donaldson and the other leadership figures in the DUP, and many of the Assembly members, would like to find a way back in. They know the alternative is almost certainly a greater role for the Irish Government in one way or another. It would be a strange irony if we effectively had a reproduction of the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985, about which Ian Paisley said "Never! Never! Never!" and the removal of which was a main objective of unionists during the Good Friday talks.

I have to say I am not particularly optimistic. I just do not know. Sunak bringing his party on board is a challenge too and it will be interesting to see to what extent the fact that Chris Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker are now inside the tent will have an effect. It is possible to imagine a situation where there would be agreement between the EU and the UK on measures that will be important in themselves and would give a great deal of certainty to Northern Ireland businesses, investors and consumers and would offer a chance for a reset of the UK-EU relationship. I do not know what the DUP thinks it would do in the future or how it thinks this would strategically help unionism but I would not be that optimistic, unfortunately.