Editorial: The UUP stance of in effect endorsing the Windsor Framework is a big moment​ in unionist politics

​​There was a huge moment in Northern Ireland politics yesterday.

The Ulster Unionist Party in effect gave its approval to a border in the Irish Sea. It would not characterise it as that. In fact it was not even endorsing the Windsor Framework as a final solution. But Doug Beattie did, in a long statement, lavish praise on the UK government and EU for the work they put into the recent deal. He said that the framework was a stepping stone towards a lasting solution to the problems for NI trade with the rest of the UK. He also spoke about "clear" opportunities for the dual market access for the province.

Mr Beattie welcomed the Stormont brake but said that further clarification was needed. He expressed a view that the new arrangements could help to secure NI's place in the Union. As the TUV leader said, this stance is not much of a surprise. Much of the language that Mr Beattie used is similar to the language that has been used by the DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, although the latter's party is voting against the Stormont brake tonight.

Mr Beattie can with justification point to the many issues on which the UUP has been right in recent years when the DUP has made the wrong decision. The 2014 Stormont House Agreement on legacy is one, the Irish language act is another, the tearing up of the three strands in 2020 a third (although the UUP missed a chance to go into opposition). Above all, the UUP was rightly damning of the DUP decision to back the first iteration of Boris Johnson’s Northern Ireland Protocol, a major blunder regardless of the safeguards the DUP thought it had.

But there is no getting away from the fact that in backing Windsor it is adopting a pioneering unionist tactic of massive compromise on a core part of the Union because it believes this will help secure it.