DUP highlights flaw of checks on the Irish Sea border

This was in some respects perhaps a fair assessment of the party in the early days of the late Rev Ian Paisley's leadership. No-one would have said that the founder of the Free Presbyterian Church was a moderate.

But any such criticism of the DUP today is nonsense.

Indeed, as unionist critics of the party – including at times this newspaper – have pointed out, the DUP has made concessions in recent years that it should not have done.

It moved too far down the road of political pragmatism and accepting the Sinn Fein-driven premise that each republican-led crisis should lead to a negotiation (in which, inevitably, SF gets yet more of its long cherished, and never-to-be-relinquished goals).

The DUP was indeed too quick to adopt to a position of pragmatism on the Northern Ireland Protocol.

However, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson's speech to the party faithful on Saturday in Belfast was well judged.

Forward-looking and flexible when he needed to be so, and robust on core issues.

In particular it was important to hear the Lagan Valley MP say this with regard to the Irish Sea border:

"Some lay great emphasis on cutting the number of checks on goods entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain."If that were to happen they say all our problems would be sorted notwithstanding that the protocol has not yet been fully implemented."The truth of course is that the checks on the Irish Sea border are the symptom of the underlying problem namely that Northern Ireland is subject to a different set of laws imposed upon us by a foreign entity without any say or vote by any [NI] elected representative."

This was important because even the EU is now hoping that a reduction in checks will mean that the protocol can stay in place as is.

Backing the NI Protocol Bill is itself a major compromise by unionists.

It is not the scrapping of the injustice to which Sir Jeffrey refers above. It is a minimum solution to the current constitutional damage.