DUP BLOW HOLE IN BREXIT PLAN
Unionists shatter May hopes for breakthrough concession
EMBATTLED Theresa May’s hopes of winning support for her Brexit plan were dashed over lunch with the DUP yesterday.
The Prime Minister’s bid to shore up backing for her Brussels pact was looking increasingly fruitless after she hosted the party’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds in No10.
Downing Street had hoped for a breakthrough, but he emerged saying: “The withdrawal agreement, as currently proposed, flies in the face of the Government’s commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU.”
In another blow to the PM, nearly seven in 10 Tory members think the Government are bungling Brexit negotiations, a scathing poll reveals today.
Some 68 per cent of Conservative members believe the PM is botching EU withdrawal.
Just 23 per cent of 1215 Conservative members surveyed support the Prime Minister’s departure deal, according to the Party Members Project for Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University.
Only 29 per cent of Tory members would vote for it, compared to 64 per cent who would vote to quit without a pact.
Professor Tim Bale said: “It would be fair to say that the Tory grassroots are, if not obsessed, then consumed by Brexit. But what is really striking is how little support there is at the Tory grassroots for Mrs May’s deal.”
MPs are due to vote on her pact in the week starting January 14 in a crunch Commons showdown.
But the PM was urged to delay the “meaningful vote” on her Brexit deal a second time.
Ex-Brexit Secretary David Davis believes it could be shelved again.
In a newspaper article, he wrote: “The withdrawal agreement does not respect the referendum result. That is why the meaningful vote had to be delayed and one wonders if even the January vote will go ahead.”