Four-yearly role for Stormont on aligning with Great Britain regulations will cause instability and chip away at NI’s place in Union

But, I wasn’t expecting the DUP to agree to it!

My main concern is the nature of the on-going democratic control over the decision to put, and then keep, Northern Ireland into an all-island regulatory zone.

A decision by Stormont at the end of the transition period and every four years thereafter would be complicated.

The DUP may be thinking of petitions of concern, with one bound and they are eventually free. Maybe, but Stormont has to be sitting for those.

Surely that might be another reason for Sinn Fein to stand in the way of the return of the assembly. A referendum, on the other hand, would be catastrophically divisive and rancorous, the natural habitat of Sinn Fein.

Northern Ireland might be condemned to the fate of Sisyphus, rolling a rock up a hill for eternity,to see it tumbling again down to the plain. Sisyphus arguably deserved it, but Northern Ireland certainly doesn’t.

A four-yearly decision on effectively aligning with Great Britain, or with the Republic and Europe, albeit just on regulations and not customs, could evolve into an endless series of mini-border polls in all but name.

It’s a recipe for instability, and the chipping away of Northern Ireland’s place in the Union.

John Gemmell, Wem, Shropshire