Led by Theresa May, the Tories and the DUP have voted in favour of a parliamentary amendment to abandon the previously agreed 'backstop'.

The amendment declares that Westminster would approve a deal with the EU if the backstop, which protects Ireland from a remilitarised border across the island, is replaced with unspecified "alternative arrangements".

May's decision to back the game-changing new policy set down by senior Tory Graham Brady is the clearest sign yet that the British government has betrayed the 1998 peace deal which ended the armed struggle of the Provisional IRA.

After a year of crossing their fingers, a hopelessly naive Dublin government has finally accepted that Theresa May has welshed on the backstop, which was originally agreed in December 2017.

"It's an extraordinary situation that when a Prime Minister and a government negotiates a deal and then goes back and during the ratification process votes against their own deal, and now wants to go back to their negotiating partner and change everything," said Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.

It would appear that Irish-America is wakening to the significance of Brexit. A resolution opposing the re-imposition of a hard border through Ireland has now been introduced in the US Congress. Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania introduced the resolution on Tuesday.

"A hard border would eliminate the free flow of people between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, which has proved fundamental to promoting peace and unity. We must not go backwards."

Britain faces being shut out of making new trade deals with the EU after it falls out of the union in March. The promise of a bilateral trade agreement between Britain and the United States is a central plank of Britain's post-Brexit economic policy, given that British exports to the United States are worth about 100 billion pounds to the British economy.