Arlene’s ‘threat to kick Mrs May out of No.10’
DUP leader Arlene Foster last night appeared to threaten to torpedo Theresa May’s Conservative Government over Brexit.
The British prime minister sent a letter to Mrs Foster in which Mrs May suggested she was prepared to allow for a border in the Irish sea and the possibility of customs checks between the North and Britain under her Brexit deal.
Mrs May has agreed to a ‘backstop’ measure which would create a temporary ‘joint customs territory’ with the EU for the whole of the UK. But Brussels appears set to insist on a North-only ‘backstop to the backstop’ in case negotiations on a wider UK approach break down or any time limit on it expires.
Unionists fear this could result in goods being sent between Britain and the North being inspected for customs purposes.
Mrs May depends on the DUP’s ten votes for her Commons majority, but the main unionist party feared betrayal yesterday. Such a deal would lead Northern Ireland in five or ten years to ‘diverge away and separate’ from the rest of the UK, Mrs Foster claimed.
‘You can imagine how that, as a unionist, causes me great angst,’ she told RTÉ Northern Editor Tommie Gorman in an interview.
The former First Minister predicted cabinet upheaval if Mrs May brought such a deal to her ministers next week.
Boris Johnson’s brother Jo resigned as Minister for Transport yesterday over the deal.
Even if it got through the British cabinet to be brought to the House of Commons, Mrs Foster said she believed there were ‘more and more who will not support it, just like ourselves.’
She bluntly warned: ‘If she puts it to Parliament in a meaningful vote, we won’t be able to back it.’
Mrs Foster also predicted: ‘Theresa May will have a job of work to do if she is to get this through Parliament.’ She told the prime minister to ‘do the math’ in what could be a clear threat to collapse the British government.
Of her own party’s predicament Mrs Foster said: ‘I do understand that we are in a difficult position, but we have always said that we have only one red line, and that is to protect the union. That is our whole rationale and raison d’etre.
‘If she is bringing forward something that will break the union up, then we cannot support that.’
She claimed Mrs May had not only repeatedly promised the DUP to defend the union, but had also made 30 public commitments on the issue, saying she would preserve ‘the constitutional and territorial integrity’ of the UK.
The letter from the British prime minister to the DUP, with its overtones of a border down the Irish Sea, flew in the face of such commitments, Mrs Foster said. ‘Therefore she is breaking her promises.’
Under the emerging proposals, Mrs Foster said: ‘We will be a different regulatory regime and there will be a border down the Irish Sea. No unionist will be able to support that.
‘We’re essentially saying to the prime minister that we want her to keep the promises she has made and the commitments she has given in relation to the union.’
Leo Varadkar, who was at the British Irish Council on the Isle of Man, said he had ‘no specific concerns’ about the leaked letter from Mrs May to Mrs Foster. ‘It’s appropriate that they should be communicating on a matter that is of huge concern to all of us,’ the Taoiseach said. It was important to listen to the DUP, but there are other parties in the North too, he noted.
‘We are at a sensitive point in the negotiations. A successful outcome is not guaranteed, but I still think it is possible in the next few weeks, and possibly with that in mind, the less said the better.’
No.10 has been talking up the prospect of a Brexit deal within days, saying it is 95% done, but Irish officials were saying last night there has been no change since Mr Varadkar and Mrs May spoke on Monday – with the Taoiseach refusing to back down on the permanent backstop to which the UK has already agreed.
North could be left in EU customs area ‘She is breaking her promises’