DUP must think quickly as protocol deal puts its holding pattern under pressure

Finally, a deal has been done on the Northern Ireland protocol.

For the DUP, it is decision time.

For more than a year, the party has been able to bide its time, watching as the negotiations unfolded between London and Brussels, safe in the knowledge that they did not have to make a call – or at least, not yet.

In the meantime, the North has waited. The DUP’s opposition to the Northern Ireland protocol led, a year ago, to its decision to quit the Executive at Stormont and subsequently the Assembly, leaving the North in political limbo, while, post-Brexit, businesses have long appealed for stability and certainty.

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This at least appears to have been achieved. The Northern Ireland Business Brexit Working Group – which represents 14 industry bodies – said that although it needed to read the detail of the so-called Windsor framework, reaching an agreement was an “important step” towards this and it was their “shared aspiration that this agreement will deliver a unique platform that unlocks economic growth and investment”.

In the political sphere, Sinn Féin and the SDLP, though also stressing the need to examine the detail, called immediately for the return of Stormont.

Donaldson is under no pressure from his voters, and in the council elections in May he arguably stands to lose more electorally by re-entering Stormont

“I think most people’s minds here at home will very quickly turn to the fact that we need to be in this institution, we need to be working together, we need to be tackling things like the health service, creating jobs, growing our economy, taking the full advantage that the protocol affords us,” said Sinn Féin vice-president and Northern Ireland first minister designate Michelle O’Neill.

So, it is back to the DUP. Is the deal enough to get the party to re-enter the institutions, and get government back up and running in Northern Ireland?

The initial reaction from DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was cautious: although it was “clear that significant progress has been secured across a number of areas”, he said, “key issues of concern” remain.

“There can be no disguising the fact that in some sectors of our economy EU law remains applicable in Northern Ireland.”

This – though not spelled out as such in the DUP’s criteria – has become the touchstone issue. Their “seven tests” refer only to the need to give “the people of Northern Ireland a say in the laws which govern them”, which arguably has been delivered by the new mechanism dubbed the “Stormont brake”.

[ DUP’s stalling over protocol may be exasperating but it serves a purpose ]

Yet this is flexible language, deliberately written to give the DUP space to decide whether or not its requirements have been met. In the days ahead the DUP will not just be studying the detail of the hundreds of pages of documents, but also considering whether it is in its interests to go back into Stormont or to remain outside.

Donaldson gave the appearance on Monday of a man who was not to be rushed. He is under no pressure from his voters, and in the council elections in May he arguably stands to lose more electorally – to the hardline Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) – by re-entering Stormont.

Yet as the more moderate elements in the DUP are well aware, such strategy would only sideline the party in the long term, both in Stormont and Westminster.

So it is possible to read into Donaldson’s language – that the party’s stance had been “vindicated” and claiming the framework as a DUP win – the basis for future compromise.

The North’s dominant unionist party has consistently shown itself to be vulnerable from hardline elements within and without. On Monday afternoon its critics were quick out of the traps

“When others said there would be no renegotiation and no change, our determination has proved what can be achieved,” he said.

But the North’s dominant unionist party has consistently shown itself to be vulnerable from hardline elements within and without. On Monday afternoon its critics were quick out of the traps, with the TUV leader Jim Allister rushing to outline how EU law, the European Court of Justice and the Irish Sea Border all remained under this new framework.

Here, the pressure will only build, and while this will suit those in the DUP who would prefer to stay out of the Stormont institutions indefinitely, those who want to go back in will know from experience they cannot wait too long.

A deal has been done; if such public criticism is allowed to gather steam, by the time Donaldson is ready to make a decision, he may well find it has been made for him.