PM: "It is absolutely essential that there should be untrammelled free trade...between all parts of the UK including...invoking Article 16 of the protocol if that is necessary."

These pronouncements on NI from the PM are very curious. There isn't going to be untrammelled...

...free trade between GB and NI because of the agreement he signed up to. There may be ameliorations but there has been a change in the economic relationship between NI and GB and that was at the PM's hand.

Moreover the threat of invoking Article 16 seems more curious still given it was precisely the possibility of such invocation from the EU side which attracted such universal ire, not least from HMG itself.

I’m going to be reporting from Northern Ireland over the next few days. Keen to hear from businesses and others about how the new arrangements are working (or not). DM in confidence.

Reminder of what Boris Johnson said in August 2019 when rejecting Theresa May's backstop. In the end, via his deal, we discovered that the latter outcome he'd talked about wasn't quite so unacceptable, after all.