Jon Tonge: bin the Brexit backstop will be message today

Bin the backstop will be the uncompromising message from DUP leaders Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds at potentially the liveliest conference in the party’s history today.

Some in Northern Ireland’s business and farming communities hoped their support for Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brussels deal might soften the DUP’s stance. Not a chance.

Her gamble that it is ‘her deal or no deal’ has had no impact on the DUP leadership. Its deputy chief Mr Dodds will dismiss the Prime Minister’s “false choices”. Leader Mrs Foster will accuse business leaders of failing to consider long-term economics and ignoring the status of the Union.

The stark message from Dodds and Foster to the PM as she heads to Brussels is “get renegotiating” or else. Black Friday may have passed but better deals might yet be available.

So it’s the DUP versus local industry and farming, a UK Government, Michel Barnier and 27 EU member states, not all of whom might necessarily be avid conference watchers.

However, at least the Westminster parliamentary arithmetic remains very much in the party’s favour. There is no sign yet of methodical May being able to magic a majority for her offer. The extraordinary apparent DUP-Corbyn mini-rapprochement may last a little while longer. The DUP’s objections to what Dodds will label a “pathetic and pitiful” withdrawal agreement are to be offered in detail today. They appear non-negotiable. A grim vista will be offered by a party rarely defined by its optimism. Dodds asked the PM earlier this week why paragraph 50 of last December’s deal with the EU — offering local control over EU alignment — had been deleted. He’ll be brandishing his back-up file. May’s assertion that the deletion was because the Assembly was not running was curious. Had she not noticed it had collapsed nearly a year before she — and the EU — agreed that paragraph?

According to the DUP, the backstop could become the terminus in which Northern Ireland is permanently parked under EU laws and regulations. Checks on goods coming into Northern Ireland’s ports and airports from Great Britain will become the norm. There is an ominous lack of clarity in the withdrawal plan over what happens if the UK objects to such checks. The European Court of Justice will continue to hold sway. And the new UK (NI) label featured in the deal will, in the DUP’s view, be a shove towards ROI (NI).

For many outside the conference, the view might be that the DUP is simply crying “sell-out” yet again. Given there have been so many betrayals, it might be seen as remarkable that Northern Ireland is somehow still in the UK. There won’t be any GB-NI-EU regulatory divergence for years, so the furore is completely overblown. May’s deal offers bright prospects for Northern Ireland. Inside the audi- torium, however, the belligerence against “EU annexation” will be at full throttle.

Amid the noise, defensiveness and sense of crisis it will be difficult for Mrs Foster to offer a more reflective ‘state-of-the-Union’ and strategic vision for the future that one might normally expect from the party leader at conference. And she’s unlikely to want to dwell too much on the year that has just passed.

The Tories have sent some of their top team to the most prominent DUP conference ever. Chancellor Philip Hammond has replaced chief whip Julian Smith, who was well-received last year, but who has found the DUP unmanageable in recent days.

The DUP leader will stress the absence of animosity towards the Prime Minister but it will be made clear that the ‘confidence and supply’ deal — already on life support — will not survive if the PM keeps her course.

Confident that May cannot command the Commons, the DUP leadership will stress its willingness to revive an arrangement with the Conservatives if a new deal and/or new leader is in place. And if May’s deal fails in Parliament, she will surely quit her post as quickly as David Cameron left his, the morning after the referendum vote to leave the EU.

So today’s conference is not just about the DUP. It’s also about the future of the governing party. Some expected a leadership contest to be launched at the DUP conference this year. We just didn’t expect it to be the Conservative Party’s.

Jon Tonge is Professor of Politics at the University of Liverpool and co-author of The Democratic Unionist Party: From Protest to Power