STEPHEN GLOVER: It has cost four Tory Premiers their jobs… but at long last, a sigh of relief 

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Are we there? Have we finally made it? As I write, there are reports that we are inching towards a final deal with the European Union, and may have even got across the line.

British negotiator David Frost and his EU counterpart Michel Barnier have been photographed disappearing into a locked room in Brussels, where they are said to be hammering out a final legal text.

If reports of a conclusive breakthrough are true, they mark the end of an extraordinary and divisive passage in British history.

Four years and six months to the day after the European referendum, the outcome of that historic vote has seemingly finally been honoured.

Two Prime Ministers – David Cameron and Theresa May – have either fallen on a sword or been stabbed in the back over an issue that has set members of the same family against one another, and ruined many friendships. 

Am I relieved if the reports are accurate? Of course I am. Relieved because what I personally wanted has finally happened, and because the democratic will of the British people has at last been respected. 

We have to look at the fine print, naturally. Has the Government given too much away over fishing rights? 

There were reports yesterday morning that a more generous British offer, leaving the EU 65 per cent of the overall catch in UK waters after five years, had been rejected by Brussels. Have we now gone too far?

Then there is the question of the so-called ‘level playing field’. In return for tariff-free access to the EU’s single market, it seems reasonable for the UK to respect existing common rules and standards.

The question is what happens if the UK should decide to diverge from such regulations in the future. Will the EU be able to exact penalties in that event, and will there be an independent body to determine whether these are reasonable and proportionate?

There will be much burning of the midnight oil over the coming days as politicians, journalists, lawyers and others pore over the detail of an agreement that is likely to run to more than 2,000 pages.

For me what matters most – assuming there hasn’t been a discreditable last-minute sell-out – is that after years of wrangling we are an independent country again, in control of our borders and in charge of our laws, and able after 48 years to chart our own course again as a nation.

There probably isn’t a Brexiteer in the land who would not have been delighted to be told, five or six years ago, that we would be leaving the EU on such terms. By any yardstick, this is a hard Brexit.

All the same, it is practically certain that the deal, when it is unpacked, won’t satisfy the most hardline of Tory MPs in the pro-Brexit European Research Group, some of whom don’t want a deal at all. These people won’t be happy.

But although there are bound to be objections when a Bill is presented to Parliament next week over one or two days, there surely won’t be enough antagonistic Tory MPs to derail it. 

We are leaving the EU next Thursday with a trade agreement that will avoid the ructions of No Deal, which at any rate in the short term would have led to further economic agony at a time when this country is already on its back because of the depredations of Covid-19.

The credit for this outcome must largely go to Boris Johnson. God knows, I have criticised him enough in recent weeks over his mishandling of the pandemic, and in particular for what seemed to me a breach of trust over his promise that there would be a five-day break over Christmas.

For all that, he has held his nerve in recent weeks, repeating endlessly that we would ‘prosper mightily’ without a deal (would we?) and, in a game of bluff and double bluff, giving the other side the impression that Britain would not abandon its ‘red lines’.

His enemies have said that he recklessly promised everything and has delivered nothing over Brexit. 

Well, it seems we may have a deal which, although it has inevitably involved compromise, does fulfil his promises made during the Referendum campaign.

Europe has ruined the careers of successive Tory prime ministers. It was the main issue which brought down Margaret Thatcher in 1990. It dogged John Major as he fought skirmishes with Eurosceptic Conservative MPs. Europe finished off David Cameron and Theresa May.

It would take a brave person to declare that Boris is the first Tory prime minister for several decades to have put the arguments over Europe behind him, and to have closed a disputatious chapter which at times seemed likely to tear the country apart.

But maybe at long last we can move on. There’ll be some Remainers who will regret what has happened, and a few will doubtless start to plot our re-admission into the EU. But I think for most people some sort of resolution will have been achieved.

Credit for an eleventh hour deal – assuming we have one! – should also go to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with whom the Prime Minister has reportedly established a ‘hotline’ in recent days, short-circuiting the often obstructive Michel Barnier.

Mrs von der Leyen is said to have established back channels to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. 

Meanwhile, President Emmanuel Macron of France – who has been making outrageous last-minute demands over fishing quotas – has apparently been partially side-lined.

Unsurprisingly, the French have already started briefing that Mr Johnson has made ‘huge concessions’ in the past 48 hours as the mutant coronavirus variant underlined the vulnerability of UK borders, with thousands of lorries stranded in Kent.

Again, we’ll have to look at the fine print regarding fishing quotas. 

But it is almost certain that President Macron – and his unofficial lieutenant Mr Barnier, a former French foreign minister – have been forced to back down over their more outlandish demands over a level playing field.

Are we there? I hope so. I think so. These have been particularly nightmarish weeks for our country. 

The horrors of Covid will be with us for some months yet. But a fair and realistic deal with the EU that respects our sovereignty will be the best kind of Christmas present for a troubled nation.