The DUP has been right to take a firm stand on north-south contacts

The DUP’s initial response to the Irish Sea border, lasting until many months into this year, was ineffective.

It caused not the slightest concern to the Irish government, to the EU or indeed to the UK government — the latter of which has been talking for some time with a forked tongue about the Northern Ireland Protocol that it agreed with Brussels in 2019.

The DUP has since greatly toughened up its position on the disgraceful internal UK border.

Last week at the Tory Party conference, Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, Doug Beattie and Jim Allister shared a platform against the protocol.

Above all, the DUP has been right to take such a firm new position on north-south relations.

Think for a moment what it would mean if had not done so. It would mean that east-west can be trashed because nationalist Ireland refuses to accept so much as CCTV at the land border, and unionism doesn’t do a thing about it. It barely even alters its relationship with Dublin, except in ways that are almost meaningless (the initial DUP position).

A weak UK conceded that nationalist demand back on the land border in 2017 (and the idea that the Irish land frontier must be protected before and above the Irish Sea frontier was supported, it should be said, by NI business leaders, despite the latter being of far greater significance to our economy).

This newspaper would never recommend that Stormont ministers disobey a court order, if such a situation arises, but yesterday’s ruling on the unlawful nature of the DUP boycott is a further moment when London should reflect on the position in which it has put unionists.

It remains to be seen exactly what the change in the government’s legal approach to protocol challenge will be, but if the Irish Sea border stays remotely as is, then the UK has allowed a coach and horses to have been run through the Belfast Agreement.

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