What does the DUP expect?

WorldbyStorm

Aug 2

Here's a revealing observation by the DUP from late last month:

[It] said on Wednesday there had been no meaningful action from London to convince it to rejoin the Stormont Assembly it scuppered last year over post-Brexit trade rules.

Is that a fact?

DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson said there remained "no solid basis" to restore the devolved assembly, which cannot sit without the region's largest pro-British unionist party.

Moreover:

The collapsed the devolved executive 17 months ago in protest at the first post-Brexit agreement with the EU and then rejected a fresh deal struck in February to end many of the new trade checks between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

The British government subsequently pledged to introduce laws to further protect trade with Northern Ireland and placate the DUP, but has not tabled any proposals in advance of the British parliament's six-week recess that begins on Thursday.

Now what message does the DUP think that sends to them? Most parties might think this indicated that whatever their own perceptions they weren't being taken entirely seriously by London. Then again most parties might think that given the Windsor Framework is supported by London, Dublin and Washington and Brussels they had little leverage to begin with.

And yet like a particularly irritating wind-up toy on goes the DUP:

"The government committed to taking action to restore our place in the UK internal market but whilst statements and headlines have been in plentiful supply, there has been a lack of meaningful action," Mr Donaldson said in a statement after a meeting with Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Chris Heaton-Harris.

Unlike the rest of the UK, since Brexit, Northern Ireland has effectively remained in the EU's single market to keep its land border with Ireland open, a key aspect of the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

That last is key and it says much about DUP/TUV attitudes that they do not recognise how important this is for a London desperate to stabilise matters after more than a half decade of chaos. But perhaps that too tells us much about their understanding of the reality that the Union they hold in such high esteem has responsibilities as well as rights. And that the Union itself has had to shift and change to accommodate the post GFA/BA dispensation on the island, as will they.