Brexit: Theresa May and Boris Johnson’s words on the Irish border are back to haunt you | Political news

Theresa May told the British parliament that “no UK prime minister could ever access” a border in the Irish Sea.

Boris Johnson later told a Democratic Unionist Party conference that “no British Conservative government could or should sign such an agreement.”

Their words have come back to haunt them.

By agreeing to implement the Northern Ireland protocol of the Brexit Withdrawal Agreement, the government is effectively establishing a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

Not that Cabinet Minister Michael Gove is admitting it.

“British sausages will still make it to Belfast and Ballymena,” he joked in the Commons.

Having threatened to violate international law, the government has relented on an east-west maritime border, ensuring that there is no need for a north-south land.

Various mitigations, such as grace periods before some controls are required, will reduce the economic impact in the short term.

But unionists fear a long-term constitutional impact, and the DUP warns that “safeguarding the union is not a three-, six-, or 12-month project,” but “a lasting commitment.”

The Ulster Unionist Party says the DUP’s red line “has been erased” and the Traditional Unionist Voice, another unionist party, claims the deal leaves Northern Ireland “in the waiting room” of Irish unity.

The threat to violate international law had raised unionist hopes that the government might renege on its acceptance of a border in the Irish Sea.

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Unionists rejected the endorsement of Theresa May, who would have kept the whole of Britain in the EU single market if necessary to avoid internal borders.

They have ended up with something much less pleasant for them: an economic line in the Irish Sea, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

That is a border by any other name.