Hello and welcome to Coffee House Shots, The Spectator's Daily Political Podcast.

I'm Lara Prendergast and I'm today joined by James Forsyth and Katie Balls.

So Parliament's back and Theresa May's Brexit problems seem to have restarted again.

At this point it seems like the DUP is the biggest problem. James, what are they up to?

So our only boss to the leader of the DUP is the biggest problem. James, what are they up to? So Arlene Foster, the leader of DUP, is in Brussels today meeting, Michelle Barnier.

And she's given a press conference, and she's removed the bit of wiggle room that people thought

Theresa May might have on the backstop, which is there was some excitement that a statement

she released last night suggested that while she didn't

want any regulatory checks on goods going from Great Britain to Northern Ireland, her only red

line was checks on goods going from Norman Ireland to Great Britain. But this morning first

in an interview on Radio Ulster and then in Brussels, she's clarified. She said, no, no, no, any barriers

between G.B and Northern Ireland, either way, would be unacceptable to them. And we're now left

wondering what the government are going to do on the backstop. Yeah, I think there was a wave

of optimism across Westminster yesterday afternoon when the statement came out, something that

James documented on Coffee House,

because it did appear to provide some wriggle room for Theresa May. The government needs to get

the EU redrawal bill, basically, you know, substantially there in the next couple of days,

into next week before they have their next big EU council meeting. One of the crucial issues is the

Irish border, and this suggested that Theresa May would be able to budge of it.

That has not happened.

Aline Foster has completely ruled that out

and I think there is little reason to think that she is suddenly going to change her red line

...