Will Liz Truss pull out the stops this year to get Brexit done finally?

Will Liz Truss pull out the stops this year to get Brexit done finally?

Good afternoon. The Britain after Brexit briefing is back for 2022, the year that Brexit may finally really “get done” — or at least the first phase of Brexit.

If all goes to plan, this will come in two parts: firstly an agreement in the next two or three months to put the post-Brexit trade rules for Northern Ireland on a politically and economically sustainable footing; secondly the phasing in of full border controls on imported goods from the EU into the UK, of which more in subsequent editions.

On the Northern Ireland trade question, after a Christmas and New Year break where I understand officials really did take time off, talks to try and cut a deal with Brussels will begin in earnest in the UK next week. The Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney is also in London tonight in order to lay some of the groundwork.

In pondering the challenges of the coming negotiation, it’s worth recalling at the outset that the EU and the UK do already have an agreement which was negotiated in 2019 — the benighted Northern Ireland Protocol. It’s just that the UK government, in retrospect, has declared it to be unsustainable.

The original agreement remains the baseline