Editorial: The UK is right to avoid a joint stewardship approach to Northern Ireland with the Republic of Ireland

​​The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar was yesterday in a favoured mode of his Fine Gael-led government: scolding the UK. He said: "One thing I'm saying very strongly to the British government is that we need to have a common strategy, that we need to work hand in glove, that we need together to put pressure on the parties to come into government. We haven't really had that approach for quite some time ..."

There are serious criticisms to be made of the UK government on a range of issues, Northern Ireland prominent among them, including the disappointing tenures of Chris Heaton-Harris and Steve Baker as Northern Ireland Office ministers who have shown themselves to be uninformed, then beholden to officials who defer to their Irish counterparts. But one thing London has done right is to retreat from the sort of joint approach that Julian Smith took with Simon Coveney. Smith allowed the three strands to be torn up in the 2019 and 2020 talks and let the Irish government delve deep into matters that are internal to Northern Ireland. This very damaging precedent met no protest from unionists.

But while it is reassuring to learn that Mr Varadkar feels that the UK is not adopting a joint stewardship approach to the return of Stormont, it is worrying to hear the Taoiseach talk about returning to a position where "the British and Irish governments work together, and are honest brokers, and don't particularly take the side of nationalism or the side of unionists".

No such time prevailed because Dublin has long been partisan in favour of nationalists, but flagrantly so since 2016 on the Irish Sea border, on the Irish language and even on legacy, where its scolding demands of the UK are akin to those of Sinn Fein. London never so much as responds to this incessant criticism, let alone sides with unionists.