DUP could block deal as Arlene Foster warns PM: We can’t support pact that breaks up UK

ARLENE Foster last night warned Theresa May she faces ‘consequences’ if she fails to stick to her Brexit promises on Northern Ireland.

The Democratic Unionist Party leader said it could block the deal as she prepared for a showdown with the PM.

The party’s ten MPs prop up the Government through a formal ‘confidence and supply’ deal that obliges them to vote for the Budget, the Queen’s Speech and Brexit legislation.

But the party yesterday said there was ‘serious trouble’ with the deal and accused Mrs May of allowing the EU to ‘administer a punishment beating’ on the UK in Brexit negotiations.

At Westminster, Mrs Foster said the DUP would vote against any deal that ‘broke up the United Kingdom’.

She added: ‘The Prime Minister has been very clear in relation to our position right throughout the process and just to be clear, we wrote to her on November 1 setting out the position.

‘If she decides to go against that, if she decides to go against herself – because on many, many occasions she stood up in this very place and said she will not break up the United Kingdom, there will be no difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK – if she decides to go against all that, then there will be consequences.

‘Of course there will be consequences. We could not as Unionists support a deal that broke up the United Kingdom.’

DUP chief whip Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the BBC it didn’t ‘fear a general election’, when asked if it would risk having Jeremy Corbyn, a long-term supporter of a united Ireland, as prime minister.