It is only a matter of days since the Windsor Framework's red and green lanes came into force but already unionism has whipped itself into a frenzy of recrimination over whether Sir Jeffrey Donaldson is poised to bring the DUP's Stormont boycott to an end.
Or at least large chunks of unionism have. It should be acknowledged that Doug Beattie, the UUP leader, continues to urge a return to the assembly. He argues this would not only allow MLAs to address concerns over the framework but also fulfil their responsibility to form a power-sharing executive that might begin to tackle the mountain range of issues – from health and social care collapse to Lough Neagh's plight – that has accumulated since the DUP shamefully pulled down the institutions.
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In this, Mr Beattie is in line with the overwhelming body of elected political representation in the north, including Sinn Féin, Alliance and the SDLP.
They each repeated their calls for a return to Stormont on Tuesday during separate meetings with Labour MP Hilary Benn who was making his first visit to Northern Ireland as shadow secretary of state.
The DUP also met with Mr Benn. Afterwards, Sir Jeffrey trotted out the same tired rhetoric he has been saying for months about "not planning for failure" and how he wants "to see a functioning Stormont".
That, of course, is entirely in his gift. Sir Jeffrey could – and emphatically should – end his pointless resistance to power-sharing immediately. It remains beyond infuriating that everyone else must suffer for the consequences of the Brexit fantasy championed and facilitated by the DUP.
The DUP leader and his supporters appear to be holding out for an approach from the British government to coax them back to Stormont. Given the Windsor Framework is a deal between the UK government and the EU, and that both sides insist they won't re-open negotiations, it is a mystery as to what extra assurances can be offered unilaterally by a Conservative government in its death throes.
There are, however, rumblings that Chris Heaton-Harris, the latest in a long line of lacklustre secretaries of state, is about to make a final response to the DUP's wearily long and self-serving list of complaints, and that these proposals will be put to party members at a meeting in Lurgan on Thursday.
The mere whiff of a suggestion that Sir Jeffrey is even considering a return to Stormont has been enough to provoke pre-emptive strikes from the self-appointed Lundy-finders who occupy the echoing recesses of unionism and loyalism.
Sir Jeffrey himself has significantly emboldened these fringe elements, and must bear responsibility for that. He now needs to find the courage to face them down.
