‘Deal put UK future in danger’

A BREXIT deal giving special status to Northern Ireland could have put the future of the UK in jeopardy, the leader of the Scottish Conservative party has warned.

Ruth Davidson said such a set-up could have ‘unravelled the entire United Kingdom’, adding that she had told British prime minister Theresa May the 13 Scottish Tory MPs at Westminster would not be able to support it.

Keeping Northern Ireland in the single market is seen as crucial in preventing the return of a hard border with the Republic – something UK ministers have pledged to avoid. Arrangements on regulatory alignment had been proposed which would have seen the North and South following the same rules on trade, allowing goods to continue to move freely across the border with no checks. But Ms Davidson, writing in The Scotsman newspaper, said keeping the internal market within the UK on a level playing field is crucial to Scotland.

Meanwhile, Theresa May yesterday pledged to protect the ‘constitutional integrity’ of the UK in the negotiations to break the deadlock in the Brexit talks over the border.

The British prime minister, who spoke earlier by telephone to DUP leader Arlene Foster, said the UK government was committed to ensuring there was no return to a hard border between the North and the Republic.

However, she told MPs the issue could only be finally resolved once negotiations with the EU move onto the second phase – including talks on a free trade deal. Her comments came after the DUP scuppered a deal on Monday to enable the talks to move to the next phase.