The Renewable Heating Incentive (RHI) debacle came about partly because the scheme that applied across the water was ‘amended’ to ‘suit’ Northern Ireland. If the existing scheme had been largely transposed to our shores, presumably the checks and balances, preventing those opting into it from getting paid tax-payers’ money to burn pellets, would have applied. We would have been treated the same as England then, as it didn’t suffer the cash-for-ash scandal that we did here.

The politicians, ministers, civil servants and SpAds who sanctioned the changes to the English scheme presumably recognised that we are not the same. Our laws, legal, political and education systems; our history, culture, population make-up are all significantly different – different from the rest of the UK and from our neighbours in the Republic of Ireland.

The UK comprises four countries with complex inter-relationships and with a variety of similarities and differences. They are linked but are not the same. There are three counties in England viz. Hampshire, Kent and Essex which have a population of approximately 1.8 million people – the same size as us. But they are palpably not the same as us. Northern Ireland got it horribly wrong with RHI, the public inquiry will eventually show us how that happened, but it fitted into a pattern of Stormont tweaking things to reflect our unique circumstances.

So, now we watch as the DUP, the party which essentially brought us the RHI scandal, insists that we cannot have a customs agreement or backstop or border down the Irish Sea, because that would make us different from the rest of the UK. All of this despite the majority of Northern Ireland having voted to remain within the EU and the economic and social advantages of a special deal for us being there for the taking. The DUP wanted to be different for the RHI but somehow be the same for Brexit. Clearly, the RHI changes did not challenge their idea of identity in the way that a potential difference in Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland does.

Progress will only be possible when our leaders leave this outdated identity politics behind and fully embrace and respect all our differences. Or maybe, more precisely, when people start voting for politicians who will make a difference rather than to keep the other side out. Northern Ireland is unique, and our politicians could and should use that to our advantage. There are deals to be done in and around Brexit which could maximise the economic, cultural and social benefits for us all. For that to happen the DUP would have to start thinking about what is best for the future of the people of Northern Ireland. So far, they seem so blinded by their version of extreme Britishness and insistence on being treated the same as GB that they cannot see the huge economic opportunities staring them in the face.

Of even more concern is the inherent danger of painting over our obvious differences with this fervent British Brexit Nationalism. Instead of building a modern, inclusive but different and competitive Northern Ireland, their actions are serving to destabilise the consensus that has uneasily, but relatively peacefully, kept us together since the Good Friday Agreement.