Amid UK inaction on the Northern Ireland Protocol, the DUP is right to hold firm against it

In July, the UK government launched a fightback against its own abandonment of Northern Ireland.

For most of the preceding six months London had denied there was a border in the Irish Sea, just as Boris Johnson had denied the intention of such an internal UK barrier after his sudden deal with Leo Varadkar in 2019.

In fact the scale of what the prime minister did then has become so clear with time that even he had to make moves against the very protocol that government lawyers had been defending in court against a joint unionist legal challenge.

Apologists for the Northern Ireland Protocol, including some Irish nationalists, argue that there is no constitutional change as a result of the trade frontier, but often such arguments seem to be rooted in a desperate desire to keep the Irish Sea border for just that reason — that it represents a significant constitutional move towards an all island.

On matters from VAT to the movement of pets to the free transport of meats to the availability of parts or seeds and even the control of medicines, Britain has in effect lost control of part of the UK, even if the EU does not enforce the loss.

It might sound emotive, or even irresponsible, to call it a betrayal, yet it was a concession of the most grave variety, which latterly seems to have come to have troubled Mr Johnson, who seemed so cavalier about it at the time.

As recently as early November, Lord Frost for the UK was clearly prepared for a showdown with the EU over these deplorable encroachments on sovereignty. For reasons that are as yet unclear, London’s tone has changed completely. It looks like it has lost the stomach for a fight, or as if it simply does not now have the bandwidth to hold firm.

The DUP is being criticised, even mocked, for its repeated warnings of the threat to Stormont over the UK’s inaction. In reality, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has no alternative but to take such a stance.

If unionists are to acquiesce in being excluded from the UK internal market then a key plank of unionism will have evaporated.

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