Theresa May’s failed gamble must not leave the North in peril

It’s been more than 130 years since Lord Randolph Churchill coined the phrase ‘playing the Orange card’.

It was at the height of the British political efforts to give Ireland – then unpartitioned – more autonomy within Britain.

The prime minister of the time, William Gladstone, was attempting to pass the first Home Rule bill, but Churchill was stridently opposed.

It motivated him to write a letter to a political fellow on February ...