Theresa May, like many in her party, has never really been interested in Northern Ireland and is no friend to the Irish people, North or South.
She’s barely visited since she became prime minister and, in stark contrast to most prime ministers in living memory, has made next to no effort to revive the political peace project that remains so precious and so fragile.
In fact, it was in her reckless treatment of Northern Ireland’s delicately balanced politics that Theresa May’s trademark readiness to sacrifice the national interest for that of her party first became apparent.
Her decision to forge a partnership with the Democratic Unionist Party, sealed with a seedy transaction of cash for votes, illustrated both her indifference to the stability of Northern Ireland’s power-sharing politics and to the peace that was built upon it.
It also set the tone for her self-interested engagement in the broader Brexit debate: with warm words on offer for those communities worried about the reintroduction of a hard border and cold cash available for MPs – perhaps Labour ones too, I’m ashamed to say - who might vote for a deal that would deliver one.
Even on her whistle-stop tour of Northern Ireland, she showed little real regard, or even respect for the real fears of people across communities about the impact a hard border would have on their hard-won peace. Real respect would have meant answering some of the serious questions she was asked about what she means by ‘alternative arrangements’ to the backstop, or how she can possibly keep her pledge to maintain an open border without one.
But, instead, all we got were more promises and platitudes, leaving most observers with the impression that there is no new plan or technological fix in the offing. Merely more of Plan A, just with lesser security for Northern Ireland.
And that, after all, has also been typical of the way this Prime Minster has handled Brexit - with stubborn inflexibility, other than when it comes to bending to the will of the hardliners in her own party.
That’s how we got to the ludicrous red lines that the Brexiters demanded and she accepted. And that is precisely how we have arrived at our current impasse, with the Tory right-wing insisting that she rejects the open-border insurance policy, and the Prime Minster scuttling first to Belfast to plead for forgiveness and next to Brussels to petition on behalf not of the country, but of Jacob Rees-Mogg and his ERG mob.
The EU, for its part, has rejected talk of revisiting the backstop unless the Prime Minister changes her red lines. The 27 have no intention to offer up Ireland as a sacrificial lamb for Brexit and, after two and a half years of exploring alternatives to the backstop, they have understandably asked the UK come up with something workable.
And therein lies the fundamental problem. One that the Prime Minister couldn’t solve in Belfast yesterday – just as she hasn’t been able to since June 2016. How do we leave the customs union and maintain an open land border with the EU across the island of Ireland? Because to guarantee peace, the Irish border must remain is it now: invisible, open and free of any physical infrastructure.
Anything less than that is not just the typical and casual indifference of the absent Tory landlord in Ireland, it would be an act of reckless vandalism in a peace process that recent bombings and shootings have revealed as all too fragile.
Owen Smith is the Labour MP for Pontypridd and former shadow Northern Ireland secretary, and a support of Best for Britain, a campaign for a second referendum on a Brexit deal