Sir Jeffrey Donaldson: Can the DUP negotiate its way out of deep water?

The BBC understands a meeting of the DUP's Officer board has been postponed

Nothing in this life is certain they say, except death and taxes.

To that you can now add a third - Sir Jeffrey Donaldson believes the best way to protect the Union is for the DUP to be inside a restored power-sharing government.

Problem is that is not yet something he can negotiate, either with the Westminster government or some influential figures in his own party.

The road to Stormont is, like many currently around his native County Down, only passable with care, if at all.

BBC News NI understands a meeting of the DUP's officer board planned for Thursday evening has been postponed.

Last week's did not happen either.

A sure sign that Sir Jeffrey did not get what he hoped for from a meeting with government officials on Wednesday.

As he said in a interview with just one outlet - Cool FM - there are still "significant gaps" that have to be resolved before a proposal can be presented to his party.

And so he is waiting to see if those gaps can somehow be closed in the next few weeks.

'Defeatist and negative'

He can hardly recommend a Stormont return to sceptics like Lord Dodds, Sammy Wilson and Lord Morrow if he's publicly admitting he hasn't got all he wants.

But time is getting shorter and the pressure on Sir Jeffrey is increasing, as evidenced by an outburst aimed at unionist newspaper the News Letter.

Wednesday's edition ran an editorial entitled "Few will see victory in a Stormont return". Sir Jeffrey has now bitten back calling it "defeatist and negative".

Sir Jeffrey's party has pledged to emerge with a deal which matches seven tests

But all the News Letter was doing was saying aloud what many already think - that it is highly unlikely, to almost impossible, for Sir Jeffrey to emerge with a deal which in any way matches the seven tests against which his party will measure a possible return.

And yet in the same letter to the paper, he repeated his recent conference speech mantra that devolution is the best way to secure the Union.

Or to quote him directly: "In a Northern Ireland that is changing, unionists need to broaden support for the Union and this will not be achieved by retreating to the narrow ground implicit in the editorial."

'We'll get what we get'

Aside from a very select few - Sir Jeffrey himself, his deputy Gavin Robinson, assembly members Gordon Lyons and Emma Little-Pengelly, and the party's powerful chief executive Timothy Johnston - no-one else seems to know the fine details of what has been offered or rather not offered.

One senior figure says: "I don't even bother asking. We'll get what we get when we get it, and then we can decide on that."

Some say Rishi Sunak will have to become personally involved in negotiations

Sir Jeffrey told a meeting of the party's assembly members on Monday that it could be "three or four weeks" before he's in a position to decide.

But another figure says: "It's hardball time. The government will give you as little as they can get away with giving. That's the way it works."

Others think Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will have to become personally involved - that is if the government is serious about bending far enough to get a DUP result.

The News Letter editor Ben Lowry says he cannot see a return to Stormont "without a rupture in unionism, which was probably coming anyway".

The DUP has been split recently and will be in no mood to go back. But this is testing Sir Jeffrey Donaldson and his leadership team as never before.

He wrote in his letter to the News Letter: "We will not be afraid to say no if we conclude that what is on offer does not adequately deal with our fundamental concerns and is not in the best long-term interests of the Union."

But he's already made clear the Union is best protected from inside Stormont - you can't have it both ways.

To borrow an analogy from what is happening around much of Northern Ireland at the moment, this is deep and treacherous water and the DUP is up to its neck in it.