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Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots. I'm James Heal and I'm joined today by Katie Bulls

and Fraser Nelson. First up, Keir Starmer has given a speech this morning

at Belfast, talking about giving political cover in the event that Richie's

do not need to make changes to the protocol. Katie, why the speech and why now?

Well, I think Labour's spine opportunity. Now, of course, they will say, well,

we have always spoken in favour of the Good Friday agreement, that position,

when it comes to fixing or what they want to say, which they're making Brexit work,

which is obviously an implicit recognition from Labour. They don't currently think Brexit is working

and the protocol is one of the things they'll point to as a big problem.

But I think there is a sense there is a political opportunity here because we know that the talks

between the two sides have led to some progress. This week, there are positive

soundings about an agreement to use the same system and this is relaying the groundwork

for actually a new deal to be announced in the coming weeks on the protocol.

There is an appetite to do this before the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday agreement.

And we also know from Richie's next time his chance that he was always a person on that

Northern Ireland Protocol subcommittee who was saying, actually, that's trying to avoid

a trade war that's trying to avoid doing anything to abrupt on this, whereas people

like this trust on that committee were saying, no, no, no, that's go bold.

And Kirstalman's speech is saying that he is, the Labour Party will help get any

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