Many Unionist politicians are people of deep faith. After this week’s momentous European Union proposal for a legal text on Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, they had better pray for miracle. A miracle, that is, of technology.

Last July, the Democratic Unionist Party MP Jeffrey Donaldson, spoke in tones of pure rapture about the fabulous scientific solutions that would make the problem of the Irish Border after Brexit disappear: “Technology is a wonderful thing”.