17:24

Compared to December, the DUP is positively triumphant over today’s backstop proposal because it cements paragraph 50 in the December deal which said that “in the absence of agreed solutions” the UK would ensure “no new regulatory barriers” between Northern Ireland and the UK.

The irony is that paragraph 50 was inserted after DUP leader Arlene Foster threatened to torpedo the deal in early December in a huge test for Theresa May.



At the time Dublin was feeling very pleased that the DUP got the extra paragraph.



They felt it was a win-win because it meant their own guarantees on “full alignment” between Northern Ireland and the republic in the previous paragraph were left untouched. “Not a word was changed,” sources said at the time.



At the time many thought the DUP was playing with fire by embarrassing May in Brussels. Sources say Foster’s decision to intervene so decisively in December was “transformative” to the party. “We are involved in dialogue with the prime minister all the time, teasing things out,” said a source.

What a difference a few months makes; the source meant “transformative in the way the party is treated.”