BRUSSELS STAFF

SUPPORTERS OF DUP chief Sir Jeffrey Donaldson are said to be frantically trying to reassure Ulster’s Unionists, that his comments that the deal that brought his party back to Stormont to serve under a Sinn Fein First Minister protected the union, refer to the British union and not the European Union.

“Many hard-line unionists were convinced he meant the EU,” says commentator Ulick Menace, whose latest book The Union Forever? is to be published in March. “Because what he’s expecting from the British Government is that they marry their trade laws to those of Brussels in future, to prevent too much product checking between Northern Ireland and Britain. Which means the UK slides back into the European Union’s orbit and becomes its … well, I think the word is bitch. Excuse my language.”