The Irish protocol.

The problem with this analysis is that removing the majority of the Irish sea checks, without more, is not common sense.

The checks are not there for fun. They are there to ensure that goods entering NI are also qualified for entry into the SM, so that there is no need for border controls between NI and the SM. The reason the parties committed to the Irish sea checks in the first place is their shared recognition that something was needed to protect against this risk, plus the UK's unilateral decision that they preferred this mechanism to any other.

For these reasons, a proposal for removing the majority of the checks is not going to be entertained unless accompanied by proposals for alternative mechanisms that will ensure that non-qualified goods do not enter the SM via NI. If agreement is to be reached, the EU has to be persuaded that the new mechanisms will be effective and that the UK will not - for what would be the third time - agree to mechanisms and then change its mind about what it has agreed to.

The people advancing proposals to remove checks know all this. We can conclude that anyone advancing such a proposal, and not coupling it with proposals for practicable, credible, effective new mechanisms and a recognition that the UK must demonstrate that it can be relied upon to operate them is either pretty dim, or is not acting in good faith.

That's objectively untrue. The reality was British Civil Servants got on with getting the British agenda through the EU with enormous success and recognising how successful the EU was for the UK. It was highly productive. The issue was that British politicians & media in the UK used the EU as a whipping boy for domestic politics. The "troublemakers" was an invention of British politicians and Media. I think that really demonstrates the problem with UK politics that led to Brexit and the disastrous outcome. An even better example is Unionists who have created some sort of bogeyman out of the EU to "demonstrate" loyalty to people who have no loyalty to them (Kate Hoey!) even though the EU had almost settled the NI question.

Jeffery gives into the pressure of an electoral hammering and aligns with the TUV.

North South trade is booming in general. Brexit has helped the all Ireland economy..... every cloud has a silver lining.

*citation needed*

Funny these sources you always note (totally at odds with what is being reported everywhere else) never come with a link to the source. As usual, I suspect, 'on the BBC' will turn out to be Nolan again.

At best, vote orientated bluster (DUP afraid of getting wiped out) and at worst, strategic suicide in the vein of previous strategy.

Hard to know which one it is...maybe a combination of both.

More bizarre behaviour from the DUP. If they collapse stormont then it is rule from London who were the ones who signed the Protocol. The North makes up about 2.5% of the UK population so if it is rule from London then these Irish issues will just be drowned out by English issues and the Protocol will disappear from the political spectrum.

The DUP (and perhaps other politicians in NI, and possibly the NI electorate too) seem to me to have a distorted sense of their own importance in the world at times.

Perhaps it comes of being babied/infantalised by the UK and Irish governments (and USA and even the EU now too) for so long?

If it is indulged by others (listened to RTE R1 news this lunchtime and the whole thing was about Sir Jeffrey and the DUPs latest brain-farts), maybe they are right and NI is the centre of the universe.

Two very defined positions in Unionism, one anti-Protocol/GFA one. One pro-Protocol (maybe 'accepting of the protocol' would be better than 'pro') and looking to make the easements/flexibilities work.

Time is ripe for an election IMO.

Time to call the DUP's bluff.

It seems to me that they are just absolutely snookered with no options left. Death by a thousand cuts for the DUP. Of course they could limit the damage by accepting the situation that they are powerless to change and try to make the best of it.

Alex Kane, in a piece written before Jeffery's speech, outlining the fact that the unthinkable is happening - unionism dividing.

But to vote for DUP would also be voting for no stormont. So it would be rule from London for the North. London created and put into existence the protocol.

The DUP are not offering any solution to the protocol that the EU are happy with. It seems they expect the EU to change their rules which protect the single market for 450 million people because a small Irish political party are not happy with it. It is delusional to think that the EU will change the rules because stormont is collapsed. It is more proof of how dysfunctional the North is and how it will always need outside help.