Morning View: The Ulster Unionist Party can now at times seem confused on some core issues

For years, this newspaper has been neutral between the key unionist political parties.

While much of the media is neutral between Sinn Fein and parties that support the Union, we are not.

On key issues in recent years we have sided with the Ulster Unionist Party – for example in its rejection of an Irish language act (secured by republican blackmail).

We shared the party’s outrage at how legacy has panned out to demonise UK forces who outwitted IRA mayhem (we will soon run essays by the lawyer Neil Faris on how, incredibly, the revised legacy plans still contain provisions that could turn against the state).

We agreed with UUP alarm at the three strands being discarded in 2020’s Stormont restoration deal.

And we admire the immediacy with which the party rejected Boris Johnson’s first iteration of a regulatory Irish Sea border in early October 2019 (which would have been no such thing).

The UUP having been so right on such issues, it has been a sorry sight to see its recent confusion.

Doug Beattie, for example, at one point endorsed London legislating to restore Stormont and bypass the DUP’s (belated) action against the NI Protocol.

The UUP praised itself for engagement as it travelled to meet EU leaders who, instead of being impressed, will have enjoyed seeing a unionist party undermine the harder UK line.

Mr Beattie recently said that Leo Varadkar was not a “bogeyman” for unionism without immediately expressing contempt for how anglophobia rose under him and Simon Coveney.

On Sunday he said the protocol is no threat to the Union, then yesterday clarified that it was. Of course it is. Unionism needs a moderate, agreeable wing and Mr Beattie could be that. But it must also be unbending on core unionist principles if it is not to give succour to emboldened nationalism.