After the Windsor Framework, the DUP boycott of Stormont is pointless as well as damaging
Given the long and unhappy history of Northern Ireland, it should not trouble anyone that the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), long wary of betrayal by British Conservative governments (and with good reason), is taking its time over the Windsor Framework.
They may be encouraged to support it by the rapid – albeit grudging and graceless – support for the deal proffered by Lord Frost and Boris Johnson, the architects of the far inferior Northern Ireland protocol that the framework replaces.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, Liam Fox and Steve Baker, three of the figures the DUP might expect to organise parliamentary resistance within the Conservative Party, have also backed Mr Sunak – Mr Baker emotionally so. The Tory rebellion, which even a week ago looked like it might seriously destabilise Mr Sunak’s leadership, seems to be melting away, dissolved by the sheer power of the concessions he has charmed out of Brussels.
