Brexit deal derailed by DUP
Tory allies won’t accept plan that ‘separates Ulster from rest of UK’
THERESA May has ten days to save Brexit talks after DUP allies blocked plans to resolve the status of Northern Ireland’s border with the south.
The Prime Minister had to break off from lunch with European Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker yesterday to field an angry call from DUP leader Arlene Foster who had gone public with her concerns.
Before the lunch, EU diplomats and journalists had been told to expect a 15-page document outlining details of a deal that would clear the way for trade talks to begin this month.
But later in the afternoon Mrs May and Mr Juncker faced the Press in Brussels to announce that discussions on a divorce deal had been abandoned for the day.
A senior Tory said the DUP had ‘gone ballistic’ over a proposed compromise which they feared would result in ‘regulatory divergence’ from the rest of the UK and an effective border in the Irish Sea. The party even threatened to pull out of a deal to prop up the Government at Westminster. ‘They are seething,’ the source said.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson described the proposals as a ‘unionist nightmare’ which could lead to the break-up of the UK.
But the British proposals are understood to be more subtle. Mrs May is thought to be proposing an arrangement which would require the whole UK to retain ‘regulatory alignment’ with the EU on a narrow range of issues that affect the Irish border. These include energy, agriculture and transport.
The UK would commit to the same regulatory outcomes in these areas as the EU, but would be free to achieve them by different routes. Crucially, the UK would be free to diverge from EU rules in all other areas.
The proposed compromise would allow Northern Ireland to retain the same rules as the Republic in critical areas without splitting from the rest of the UK.
But it will prove highly controversial with some Tory MPs.
Mrs May will spend today in talks with Cabinet colleagues and political leaders in both the north and south of Ireland as she tries to find a way through the deadlock.
She is then expected to head back to Brussels tomorrow to resume talks with Mr Juncker.
The Prime Minister yesterday insisted progress had been made, but acknowledged that on ‘a couple of issues some differences do remain which require further negotiation and consultation’.
Mr Juncker described Mrs May as a ‘tough negotiator’ but said he remained ‘very confident’ a deal would be agreed this week.
EU Council president Donald Tusk had set yesterday as the ‘absolute deadline’ for agreement. Last night he said time was ‘very tight’. But No 10 said a summit of EU leaders on December 14/15 was the real deadline – giving Mrs May ten days to save the talks.
Allies of the PM said that, unlike David Cameron, she had not accepted the first deal offered by Brussels. One said Dublin and Brussels had tried to ‘bounce’ her into a deal by briefing broadcast media that it was all but done.
He added: ‘We need to maintain the integrity of our red lines and … not be like a former prime minister who did take exactly what he was given first time round.’
The talks foundered after sources in Dublin and Brussels leaked draft versions of a text they hoped to agree with Mrs May on the status of the Irish border.
The leaks suggested the PM was willing to sign a deal that would allow Northern Ireland ‘no regulatory divergence’ from Dublin, effectively tying it to the EU’s customs union. A later leak said the UK had agreed Northern Ireland would remain in ‘regulatory alignment’ with the EU in some key areas.
Nicola Sturgeon, London Mayor Sadiq Khan and Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones seized on the claims to demand that Scotland, London and Wales remain tied to the customs union and single market. SNP leader Miss Sturgeon said: ‘If one part of UK can retain regulatory alignment with EU and effectively stay in the single market … there is surely no good practical reason why others can’t.’
Last night Conservative Eurosceptics warned Mrs May against further compromise over the Irish border and the role of the European Court of Justice in policing EU citizens’ rights after Brexit.
Tory ex-leader Iain Duncan Smith said: ‘We have to be very careful. Northern Ireland cannot see any regulatory divergence from the UK.
‘Unionist nightmare’