The House of Lords was furious by the fact that the government retreated from its hardline position in negotiations with the EU over Brexit arrangements in Northern Ireland.
Lord Dodds, the former deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist party, has issued a veiled threat of action unless it restores the option of pulling the plug on the Northern Ireland protocol by using the Article 16 process.
Every day that passes with the protocol in place is another day that sees Northern Ireland and Great Britain move further apart. If the UK government can't or won't act, then unionism will be and soon, he said.
He was responding to reports that the UK has dropped its demands for the removal of the role of the European Court of Justice from the Northern Ireland protocol.
Downing Street has agreed this week that it will prioritize removing barriers to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland over other constitutional issues that have bedevilled the talks. Talks will be suspended until after Christmas.
The government source said they would be looking for an interim solution on customs and physical checks on food that have been a barrier to domestic trade and seen 200 businesses stop delivering to Northern Ireland.
Lady Hoey, along with Dodds and others, are fighting to get the protocol removed through the courts in Belfast.
Dodds said that it was now abundantly clear that the protocol talks were dragged out with little chance of an outcome that meets the bar set by the Lord Frost's command paper in July, which laid out the UK's demands for a radical rewriting of the protocol.
He accused the UK of falling into line with the EU timeline and retreating from its commitment to trigger article 16 despite the prime minister himself declaring conditions for doing so were met long ago. He also said Lord Frost had pulled back from an earlier negotiating position that all barriers to the supply of medicines from Great Britain to Northern Ireland should be removed.
He did not say what action he meant would be taken, but the DUP previously warned that it would walk out of the Stormont executive if progress was not made by November.
Earlier in the week, Dodds told the House of Lords that the delicate balance of relationships across these islands have been trashed as a result of the Northern Ireland protocol.