evidence: While Irish-unity advocates polish their credentials, the putative defenders of Northern Ireland’s place in the UK immolate their credibility. The DUP has alienated liberal Protestants by resisting same-sex unions, abortion rights and other social changes. It has collapsed power-sharing at Stormont to protest against the Northern Ireland protocol, leaving the region rudderless in the midst of a cost of living crisis and reinforcing a sense that Northern Ireland, as a political entity, simply does not work – long a cherished goal of the IRA. Meanwhile the Tories, officially the Conservative and Unionist party, have prioritised Brexit over the union. In a 2019 YouGov poll, 59% of party members said they would accept Northern Ireland leaving the UK as a price of Brexit. Boris Johnson exhibited this disregard in agreeing to the protocol, which puts a trade border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland. Liz Truss seeks to empower her government to rip up parts of the protocol with a bill currently at the House of Lords but that was devised before her fiscal policies put financial markets and her own party in revolt, reordering her priorities. There are signs Truss is preparing to cut a deal with the EU. Why else, the DUP nervously wonders, did the arch-Brexiteer Steve Baker, a Northern Ireland minister, last week apologise to Dublin and Brussels for previous behaviour?