Jon Tonge:

winning support for deal will be a struggle,

ONE hundred references to Northern Ireland in the Draft EU withdrawal agreement, but virtually none to please the DUP. Northern Ireland businesses trading across the border may take a much more positive view, and the local Remainer majority — most nationalists and non-aligned, along with a sizeable unionist minority — will like what is on offer.

The Scots (62% Remain vote, remember) might look on with envy. The Irish Government can quietly celebrate the attainment of its goals, as promised by the EU from the outset.

Northern Ireland’s economy could potentially thrive via continuing unfettered access to two big markets: European and UK. Regulatory divergence, in the short-term, is not a problem. There is none between GB, Northern Ireland and the EU at present to disrupt access to either market. Longer term may be different.

The text contains few surprises. The DUP’s tests are all failed. By virtue of continuing alignment to the EU single market, Northern Ireland will operate on different terms from the rest of the UK.

There is no check-out time for the EU’s unwilling — in the view of the DUP — guest. And the guest can only leave the hotel/prison (delete as appropriate) with the joint permission of the UK and European proprietors.

Northern Ireland will undoubtedly be closer to Ireland politically by dint of a near-common EU status — by far the most significant step towards a united Ireland since partition.

The alternative mooted last December, that alignments with the single market will be subject to Northern Ireland Assembly approval, has disappeared from view, like the Assembly itself.

While the EU states that Northern Ireland will remain aligned to the single market only for those items necessary to avoid a hard border, that’s virtually anything and everything. Yet all sides said they were not interested in creating a hard border, which has not been defined in any case. So, the alignment is to avoid a scenario which everyone said could not happen anyway. Confused? You ought to be.

What about the DUP’s fears of a border in the Irish Sea? Article 7, Page 313 (just in case you missed it) promises an EU-UK Joint Committee to operate “with a view to avoiding, to the extent possible, controls at the ports and airports of Northern Ireland”.

Cue huge rows about what constitutes “to the extent possible”. What happens if there is disagreement between the two sides over what constitutes what is possible?

And the EU remains dominant in terms of regulatory rules. The penultimate paragraph of Article 8 declares that “the United Kingdom may not initiate objection” to EU technical regulations.

Mrs May’s Cabinet victory could be the most pyrrhic since David Cameron trumpeted the backing of colleagues for his masterly EU referendum plan.

It was never about winning over the likes of Mordaunt and McVey. The key battle was always going to be in Parliament, from the moment that the Government conceded a meaningful vote on the deal.

Can the deal achieve a parliamentary majority? Only with Labour support or abstention, and Corbyn wasn’t offering either at PMQs yesterday.

His Remainer MPs might be influenced by May’s ‘This deal or no deal’ approach from here on. But they might gamble on downing the deal and getting a second referendum.

With zero chance of DUP support for the deal, RIP the confidence and supply arrangement.

Jeffrey Donaldson might physically struggle to tear up the 585-page deal the way he once demolished John Major’s Frameworks Document, but he may try.

So on non-Brexit legislation the Government — regardless of the Prime Minister’s own political fate — will struggle to pass measures.

In 134 days we leave the European Union. This offer does not apply to Northern Ireland.