Back in November I wrote about Theresa May’s dogged determination to produce a withdrawal agreement on the UK’s exit from Europe, which would deliver on the Brexit vote and provide a secure backstop arrangement for Northern Ireland. At the time, many commentators, including myself, felt she had displayed a sense of willingness and commitment to a backstop that maintained cross-border cooperation, supported the all-island economy and protected the Good Friday agreement.

But in these current times it appears that the game of politics is as changeable as the wind and a few months was just about long enough for the Prime Minister to lose control of the negotiating process and do a complete 180 on the withdrawal agreement, which she herself negotiated and pledged as the only workable Brexit.

What I’ve learned over recent months is that with May’s U-turn on her own agreement and on the backstop, not only has she has turned her back on a vast majority of people in Northern Ireland, but in doing so she has lost any trust they had in her.

The ease and willingness at which she bowed to pressure from members of the ERG and the DUP to bin the backstop and renegotiate a plan that she herself insisted was the best possible way to fulfill the promises laid out in the Good Friday Agreement and ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland, has shown how little she and indeed many in the Conservative government care about the wobbly scaffolding that holds up Northern Ireland’s fragile peace. If there was any ever doubt that Northern Ireland is irrelevant in the minds of the British government, it ended when May dumped the backstop.

I can’t be the only one who feels a level of relief at the sight and sound of Irish government ministers such as Simon Coveney and Helen McEntee on British media, when they stand up for Northern Ireland and the Good Friday Agreement during discussions about Brexit and the backstop. I find myself nodding at the radio or TV, sometimes shouting: ‘At least someone has our back’. In my view, they don’t just speak for nationalists or those who call themselves Irish citizens but for everyone who feels a hard border would be a terrible mistake. Apart from Lady Sylvia Hermon, who did a fine job of exposing the arrogance of Dominic Raab who - despite his role as Brexit secretary - didn’t think he needed to read the 40-pages of the Belfast Agreement, few politicians speak for anyone in Northern Ireland not in favour or a hard Brexit. Sinn Fein’s abstentionist policy has left nationalists particularly vulnerable. Meanwhile, the DUP are always at pains to say how intent they are at finding the best deal for Northern Ireland, a deal that will benefit all. But where is the evidence that a deal that forces regulatory checks on goods and services traded between Northern Ireland and the Republic – in other words a hard border – will be in the best interests of everyone? Furthermore, what business will want to invest in Northern Ireland if it no longer has access to EU markets? The DUP’s red lines are there to protect the union, I hear that, but can we please give up the pretense that this is in the best interests of everyone?

So many indicators point to the devastating impact a no deal will have in Northern Ireland. Indeed, the government’s own official analysis suggests a no-deal would be far worse than a scenario where the backstop was triggered, with higher trade costs and losses in the agri-food sector alone amounting to between £700m and £1.1bn. But what do we get from Brexiters including the DUP when facts, such as these, are presented? We are told it’s all scaremongering. In fact, anything that contradicts a Brexiters point of view is thrown out as being an alarming rumour. And yet they put little evidence forward showing us how we will all be better off on our own. The DUP were against joining the EU in 1973. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that 45 years later, they’re still saying no.