Confine as in protest, unfriendly state of affairs (6,2,4)
I believe the answer is:
kettle of fish
'state of affairs' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'confine as in protest unfriendly' is the wordplay.
I cannot really understand how this works, but
'unfriendly' could be 'offish' (offish can mean aloof or unfriendly) and 'offish' is located in the answer.
The remaining letters 'kettle' is a valid word which might be clued in a way I don't understand.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Another definition for kettle of fish that I've seen is " State of affairs".)