Could The Tory Infighting On Europe Finally Be Over?

Britain’s turbulent relationship with the continent has seen off a host of Conservative prime ministers. Sean O’Grady considers the chances of a break in the long-running battle

Europe has divided the Conservatives since the 1950s, when the British first posited the idea of joining a new European economic community. Initially opposed to the concept, they then changed their minds to become the party of Europe in the 1970s and 80s, before changing them back again in the 2010s, ending up as the party of Brexit.

Now Rishi Sunak has won an improbable deal with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol, which means that something like peace in the eternal Tory civil war may be at hand... but a number of questions remain.

How does Sunak’s Windsor Framework compare with the efforts of his predecessors?

It’s a much smaller business than, say, the Treaty of Rome (ratified by the UK in 1972), the Maastricht Treaty (1993), or the EU-UK trade and cooperation agreement of 2021 (of which the NI protocol is a part), but the Northern Ireland protocol has proved to be the most intractable of all the many difficult aspects of Brexit.

Even now, not all of the contradictions and uncertainties have been resolved, but it does seem that Sunak, and the EU’s officials, have got as close as humanly possible to ensuring that two and two make five. The irony is that Sunak – who, unlike Boris Johnson, is a sincere and long-standing Leaver – has managed to succeed where Johnson failed, and to place UK-EU relations on a friendlier, more secure footing.

Is the Tory civil war on Europe over?