Will Arlene be confronted with an amended backstop today? How would she react? (No prizes!)

I was watching the Commons feed last night and missed Nick Watt’s report on Newsnight, raising the hare  that Boris Johnson was  going further than an all-Ireland agri-zone and was about to revive the NI specific backstop.  Sam McBride of The Newsletter was watching.

Last night’s report suggests that Mr Johnson may be preparing to abandon the DUP for the second time in six months, despite the party having ensured he became Prime Minister..  Newsnight said Mr Johnson was understood to be concerned about the long-term uncertainty which could flow from a no-deal departure from the EU and was therefore interested in a “Canada Plus” free trade agreement with the EU.

Newsnight said that the two senior Tories who are familiar with Mr Johnson’s current thinking said that he is willing to contemplate a version of the “Northern Ireland only backstop” which would see Northern Ireland remaining tied to EU rules in areas “where there are already elements of an all Ireland economy” such as agriculture and electricity.

By contrast, the rest of the UK would be “free to chart its own course…[which] would create a border down the Irish Sea”, Mr Watt reported. He said that the government would be “wary of calling the new mechanism a backstop”.

The Remainer senior Tory told Newsnight: “Boris Johnson is not a unionist. So he would think nothing of throwing the DUP under the bus if that was in his interests.”

However, the Brexiteer insisted that Mr Johnson would not abandon the DUP and believed that Mrs Foster could sign up to a deal if three conditions were met.

He said those conditions would be:

the re-establishment of devolution with a role for Stormont in the deal;

codicils confirming the government’s commitment to Northern Ireland’s place in the UK;

 and the areas where Northern Ireland would remain closely aligned to the EU would be in areas which are currently or largely run on an all Ireland basis.

Meanwhile, a journalist from The Sunday Times has reported the threat of significant loyalist unrest if they believe Brexit undermines Northern Ireland’s place within the UK. John Mooney said: “I met a number of loyalists connected to UVF in Belfast recently. The message was clear. Anything that changes status of Northern Ireland will be greeted as the start of a process to lead to United Ireland. I would anticipate serious civil disturbance.”

There was fluttering on Twitter last night when Nigel Dodds  told Newsnight  that the DUP may accept “arrangements” which align Northern Ireland with some EU rules, contrary to the rest of the UK, so long as Stormont consents to it/

The Newsletter helpfully amplified his comments .

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds told Newsnight that he was “quite relaxed about the way things are going” and “I think Boris Johnson knows what he is about”. When asked about the possibility of Mr Johnson agreeing to an Irish Sea border, Mr Dodds, who had been chatting to Mr Johnson in the MPs’ dining room last night, said: “I don’t expect Boris Johnson to do anything of the sort”.

If Nigel Dodds was sniffing a sell out surely he would have sounded the alarm. He isn’t likely to be easily conned. But who trusts Boris Johnson? The story keeps running. The BBC’s Laura Kuennesberg tweets.

DUP leader Arlene Foster in London today – sources playing down idea that somehow a NI backstop can be resurrected as a magic solution to getting a deal done – she’s likely to see Johnson sometime this afternoon.

Odd how English MPs with bigger fish to fry take the return of a functioning   Assembly for granted; it shows how desperate they are for  a solution   But no doubt she will get some sort of reassurance. Will Johnson try out an amended backstop on her? The present Commons arithmetic may be in flux but he’d be crazy to abandon  the DUP  in advance of  the election.

The backstop remains an issue, perhaps the issue – amazingly, since  the debate on all the options from “Canada” to “Norway” are in abeyance.  A backstop “with lipstick “ as part of a tweaked withdrawal agreement  has massive attractions.  They’re not there yet but the remarks of Johnson and Dodds may suggest to hopefuls a direction of travel in that destination. This may or may not be wishful thinking.

An amended backstop would put the rebel majority on the spot.  Assuming No Deal is  now guaranteed, they lack an agreed, coherent alternative to a backstop Deal. Labour say they’d negotiate their own better deal (as unspecified as the Tories’) and vote   to call the election. They’d put that deal to the people in the election while allowing their members to campaign for Remain – in other words, against their own deal. As Johnson jeered across the despatch box to them last night, this is aabsurd. Today, Jeremy Corbyn has attempted clarification by offering a choice between a deal and Remain in a referendum. Is it much of an improvement to offer two voting exercises in quick succession?

On Sky this morning that wily operator Bertie Ahern  poured cold water on the backstop speculation.  Any  NI specific deal would have to be negotiated with unionists by “ the Barnier commission”. Parity of esteem applies to unionists too, he insisted.  The British legal system will not allow the government to defy the law. The UK will not leave on 31 October and the whole affair will be knocked forward to the Spring.

So there you have it. For the moment.