Editorial: Sir Robert Buckland's threat to the DUP of an increased say for Dublin in Northern Ireland is contemptible in light of the Irish legacy legal action against the UK

​For almost five years the chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee (NIAC) was no friend of unionists.

Simon Hoare, ​like the former NI Secretary Julian Smith, seemed rarely to find a Republic of Ireland government position for which he was not prepared to be an apologist. If unionists complained about matters such as the Irish Sea border, up would pop Mr Hoare on Radio Ulster to sigh about their failure to see how such protections were necessary to protect the land border.

Yet barely a word was said in criticism about this man’s influential tenure at the helm of the NIAC, by either unionist or fellow Tories. It is testimony to a lack of awareness among Conservative MPs at the advance of Irish nationalism that Mr Hoare’s party colleagues did not make clear that they had noticed and did not like his approach to NI.

Sir Robert Buckland, Mr Hoare’s replacement, a respected former government minister whose appointment at the helm of NIAC lifted unionist hopes of a more balanced stewardship, has been condemned for “hollow threats” of an increased role for the Irish government in the event of a return to direct rule. The Ulster Unionist leader Doug Beattie says that Chris Heaton-Harris has also outlined such an enhanced role for the Republic in the event Stormont doesn’t return (the NIO disputes this). This web version of our editorial has embedded a link to a Cool FM clip of Mr Beattie who, while he makes clear he wants Stormont back, seems remarkably sanguine about such an increased Irish say. Did he tell Mr Heaton-Harris that it would be an outrage?

Did it occur to Mr Buckland that this is no time to give succour to an Irish government that has delighted republicans by suing the UK over legacy – an Ireland that gives the IRA de facto amnesty? We trust the DUP resolve to which Gavin Robinson refers on page 15 will be all the stronger in the face of such contemptible threats.