I say “sneaky”, but I hope crafty, with his Windsor Agreement and Stormont brake to encourage the DUP back.
Why TF is it being called the Windsor agreement, getting Charles to meet VdL is just a publicity stunt.
I note, however that the NIP bill is being quietly shelved.
Is Sunak going to turn out to have more balls than we thought?
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Sunak and van der Leyden understand one another - they’re cosmopolitan and pragmatic. Also both would welcome the opportunity to ditch Johnson’s non-solution. No grandstanding either.
Meanwhile the DUP are in a bit of a bind - dinosaurs watching an approaching asteroid,. With local elections very soon, a decreasing number of mainly elderly supporters, Sinn Fein and non-sectarian parties picking more up votes all the time and on the other side ultra-right parties who can pick-off a few of the DUP’s more hardline voters.
Like it all, but unfortunately so far hasn’t much helped the £.
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I confess I would not shed a tear over the DUP’s demise.
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It’s effectively wrapping it in Union Jack bunting as a means to get it through. I’m no fan but Sunak appears to have played a blinder as a sports commentator might say. The ERG seems to be onboard and the DUP is looking increasingly isolated in their opposition so it might just work.
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If it works then I expect Sunak will try for more EU talks on loads of other stuff including a better trade arrangement, given he’s a Brexiteer it’s kind of weird.
Maybe he’s seen the light at last now that Jobo and his cohorts have mainly disappeared and others not heard from again.
I wonder if he has realised that the Brexit tide has turned, how much of a kicking and decimation his party are going to get at the next general election.
He knows as leader in the run up to the election, the blame and buck will stop with him and he is fighting for his political life and legacy.
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I missed the fact that the headline meeting was at Windsor, hence the moniker.
Yes, it seems Sunak might be posessed of more political nous than he’s previously been given credit for.
Broadly, it is to be welcomed - let’s not the perfect become the enemy of the good (especially as there are several cometing interpretations of perfect).
If there is to be a rapprochement between the UK and the EU it is likely to be in small steps such as this one. The carrot from the EU side seems to be opening up discussions about the UK re-entering the Horizon programme, but overall I can’t help the sense of polishing a turd.
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In trying to big up his agreement, Sunak, this morning, has been crowing about how his agreement will be a big boost for inward investment for Northern Ireland, and about how it will put them in a privileged position of having free trade with the EU.
Whoops.
Not really a ringing endorsement of Brexit 'eh 
The UK are now celebrating the fact that they can now trade within their own country,wow, what a triumph, Brexit has been such a success.
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It sounds like Sunak is also taking Starmer’s approach (implicitly rather than explicitly, perhaps) of not really endorsing Brexit, but talking about making it work - perhaps with a view to reducing his personal responsibility for having supported it.
After all the DUP were Brexiteers and pushed Theresa May into giving them a huge a ount of money for their support.
Northern Ireland has been without an actively representative government for far too long and it is their fault.
The UK government should step in if they continue to mess this up.
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I might agree more with that if he were to withdraw the whip from de Pfeffle…
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I’m sure he dreams about it …
Ain’t going to happen though.
Sunak appears to keen to pre-empt Starmer’s planned reforms of trade - or lack of it with the EU and at the same time head off any reversal of Brexit that Starmer may have in mind for the medium term. All tory MPs know that the writing is on the wall unless they focus on trying to make themselves more politically
desirable come the GE.
There have been quiet musings whether Sunak’s best policy is actually to make some inroads into knocking some of the sharp edges off Brexit - leaving Starmer high and dry as the only one left fully supporting it.
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I suspect that’s not entirely due to Brexit and the NIP. It may have as much to do with a lack of willingness to accept the nationalist majority in Stormont and having to play second fiddle.
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