TRADING BLOWS

May ‘can’t recommend Brexit deal’ DUP threat to vote down the Budget

THE DUP has stepped up warnings to Theresa May not to compromise over the border in her efforts to secure a Brexit deal.

Following three days of talks with key figures in Brussels, party leader Arlene Foster said the Prime Minister could not in “good conscience” accept the proposals on the table from the EU.

Her intervention came as Mrs May met key Cabinet ministers in Downing Street to brief them on the progress in the Brexit negotiations.

She was reported to have played down the prospects of a breakthrough at next week’s EU summit in Brussels, billed as the “moment of truth” by European Council president Donald Tusk.

In a statement Mrs Foster said the EU plan would effectively mean imposing a trade barrier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

She said: “The Prime Minister is a unionist.

“Many of her Cabinet colleagues have assured me of their unionism.

“Therefore, they could not in good conscience recommend a deal which places a trade barrier on United

FOREIGN SECRETARY

Kingdom businesses moving goods from one part of the Kingdom to another.”

Mrs Foster’s latest shot across the bows came after the party had earlier made clear that it would be prepared to vote against the Budget and other domestic legislation if Mrs May crossed their “red

lines”.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt insisted ministers would not sign up to any plan which compromised the territorial integrity of the UK by imposing a “border in the Irish Sea”.

He told BBC News: “The DUP’S red lines are actually Theresa May’s red lines.

“She has made it very, very clear she will not allow there to be border down the Irish Sea, that the integrity of the United Kingdom must remain intact.

“I know she will never sign up to a Brexit deal that compromises our territorial integrity.”

However, Mrs Foster said the EU’S proposals would place “an effective one-way turnstile” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

She added: “Trade from Great Britain into Northern Ireland would be in danger of restriction. Indeed, Northern Ireland’s access to any new United Kingdom trade deals would also be regulated by Brussels.”

Suspicions remain among hardline Tory Brexiteers that Mrs May is heading for a compromise which could tie the UK to EU customs arrangements indefinitely – something Boris Johnson has warned would reduce Britain to a “permanent EU colony”.

Negotiations between the two sides have focused on the proposals for a so-called “backstop” to ensure there is no return to a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

However, Brexiteers are insisting any arrangement which would see the UK effectively remain part of the customs union while negotiations over a free trade deal take place must be strictly timelimited – something the EU has

been resisting.

WARNING Foster and, left, May

CONFIDENT Mr Hunt