The Prime Minister’s long anticipated offer to the EU is a commendable effort to improve on a deeply flawed document, namely Theresa May’s disastrous "deal". It contains some positive aspirations which, if agreed by Brussels, should take our country nearer to the intended goal of Brexit. To my mind, however, it still resembles nothing so much as an attempt to put lipstick on a pig.

The masterstroke of the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, was to get Mrs May to agree to the Irish backstop. Convincing an avowed Unionist like her that it was acceptable to trap part of the UK inside the EU rulebook with no voice, no vote and no veto required a certain type of political nous. I think our nation owes a debt to the 28 “Spartans”, the Conservative MPs who quite rightly rejected her surrender document. Without them, Northern Ireland was to have been sold down the river.

With that said, the new proposed arrangements for Northern Ireland have their problems too. Indeed, they may have deep implications for the future integrity of the United Kingdom.

For Downing Street to have accepted the principle that for several years Ulster will in effect stay in the EU single market for all goods while following UK customs rules will anger many people in the province. I am astonished that the DUP leader Arlene Foster has accepted it. Even now I can hear her party’s founder, Dr Ian Paisley, bellowing his discontent down from the heavens. Perhaps the Government’s proposal for a new deal for Northern Ireland, which means a further injection of taxpayers’ cash, is the real reason behind the DUP’s nod of approval.