I think may's deal is the best option on the table. But the stubborn dup has earned my respect. | thearticle

For a while now, I’ve felt that when the history of this period is written, there will be a broad consensus that the solution that best honoured the referendum result, while protecting the

economic and diplomatic interests of the UK and Europe, was Theresa May’s deal. I sympathise with Tories frustrated with the DUP for stubbornly refusing – again – to support it, but my

grudging respect for the Northern Irish party increases by the day. Tory Brexiteers supposedly implacably opposed to May’s deal on the grounds that it would split the United Kingdom down the

Irish Sea suddenly abandoned their principles last night when May announced that she would resign if enough of them got behind it. It was an unedifying sight, laying bare the ruthless

ambition rife in the Conservative Party. If Theresa May was willing to sacrifice her premiership for ERG votes, one can only imagine what the desperate Government promised the DUP in return

for its crucial support. Whatever it was, the Northern Irish Party did not succumb to temptation. The DUP are not, and never have been, defined by Brexit. In the indicative votes last night,

English MPs voted with their Brexit tribes: remainers for revoking, a second referendum or a soft Brexit, and leavers for no deal. The DUP, on the other hand, abstained on both no deal and

a very soft Brexit (a UK wide customs union), indicating that if push came to shove, they could back either. The raison d’etre of the DUP is to keep the United Kingdom together; as Nigel

Dodds put it in a tweet yesterday ‘the DUP will not abstain on the Union’. Ultimately, the DUP care more about the Union than Brexit. So the argument that, with an extension, Brexit is only

going to get softer, or might not happen at all, worries them less than the risk that the backstop might become permanent. Exasperated Tory commentators think that DUP have just placed the

future of the Union in the hands of Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, Corbyn who took the IRA into the Commons, and McDonnell who has a plaque to the hunger-strikers on his wall. They could

well be right. But the Christian members of the DUP are not utilitarians: on each and every issue they will vote for the option which they believe is right in and of itself, not the option

which they calculate will result in the consequences they desire. It’s a different way of looking at things, and I, for one, find it rather refreshing.