‘Precarious’: High-Wire Diplomacy Ahead As Northern Ireland On The Brink of Power-Sharing Return

Sky News deputy political editor Sam Coates detailed the precarious balance the UK government is attempting to strike in Northern Ireland over Brexit as the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) acceptance of a deal proposed by the government, aimed at resuming power sharing, may not mark the end of the saga.

Coates explained: “The British government are trying something quite hard: They’re trying to tell the DUP that something has changed about the way Britain relates to NI and they’re trying to get rid of checks. They’re trying to tell the EU that nothing has changed and they’re trying to tell the Brexiters that everything is fine and this doesn’t reflect the UK’s ability to embrace Brexit freedoms. Not all three things can be true. And everybody inside government knows it.”

This comes as Northern Ireland Minister Steve Baker insisted on X that the deal will not stop Britain diverging from EU single market rules.

However, the road to resolution is far from smooth. Three crucial stakeholders – the DUP, who haven’t seen the deal yet; the EU, which also hasn’t seen it; and Brexiters being “handled” by the government – need to be appeased.

Irish nationalist Sinn Féin leader Michelle O’Neill expressed optimism, welcoming the DUP leader’s intention to restore power-sharing. This is crucial as some critics believed DUP’s opposition was motivated by not wanting a nationalist first minister.

Donaldson initiated the collapse of Northern Ireland’s Stormont devolved power-sharing government back in February 2022 in direct response to the post-Brexit trading arrangements, then known as the Northern Ireland protocol, which effectively kept Northern Ireland within the EU single market for goods. The British unionist DUP believed the arrangements sectioned Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

However, in an attempt to smooth over these longstanding frictions, the UK government and Brussels stepped up with the Windsor framework last year. This new framework was aimed at resolving the issues caused by the Northern Ireland protocol. Despite these efforts, the DUP remained unimpressed, asserting that the changes fell short of their expectations.

Adding to the drama, the announcement of this deal on Tuesday at 1am was preceded by a live leaking of the DUP meeting to loyalist Jamie Bryson — a pro-British activist who opposed accepting concessions from the DUP and the Windsor framework.

Bryson took to social media platform X, providing a sensational, minute-by-minute account of the internal meeting. Bryson’s thread described scenes of intense anger, with DUP figures furiously shouting, “Phones off!” in a desperate attempt to prevent further leaks. According to Bryson, the meeting was nothing short of “fury and mayhem.”

Speaking to BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday, Bryson would not reveal his sources but the it’s believed a DUP mole sympathetic to Bryson wore a wire throughout proceedings. Donaldson, meanwhile, said that the live tweet commentary by Bryson was “not a true reflection of DUP meeting.”