Irish PM hails new deal after DUP dumps it

BRUSSELS: Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar has welcomed the new Brexit deal negotiated by Britain and the European Union.

Varadkar said in a tweet that the divorce agreement allows the United Kingdom to leave the EU in an “orderly way”.

He said the agreement is good for both EU member Ireland and Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, as well as protecting the EU’S single market and Ireland’s place in it.

Varadkar’s enthusiasm is in stark contrast to the reaction of Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which says it won’t vote for the deal, saying it is not “in Northern Ireland’s long term interests.”

The DUP earlier confirmed it won’t vote for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal in parliament, saying it is not “in Northern Ireland’s long-term interests”.

The DUP said that under plans to maintain an open Irish border, Northern Ireland will be “bound into arrangements that the rest of the United Kingdom will not” on customs and taxation - something the pro-british Unionist party can’t accept.

It says that because Northern Ireland’s assembly has no say on whether or not the measures are imposed, the deal “drives a coach and horses through the professed sanctity of the Belfast Agreement” - the 1998 peace treaty that ended decades of violence in Northern Ireland.

The DUP is a key ally of Johnson’s government, and without the votes of its 10 lawmakers, he will struggle to get backing for the Brexit deal in parliament.