Separate N Ireland deal ‘threatens UK integrity’

A Brexit deal giving special status to Northern Ireland could have put the future of the UK in jeopardy, the Scottish Conservative leader has warned.

Ruth Davidson said such a set-up could have “unravelled the entire United Kingdom”, telling how she had told the Prime Minister the 13 Scottish Tory MPS at Westminster would not be able to support it.

She made the comments as Theresa May continued her attempts to break the deadlock in Brexit talks after a proposed deal fell apart because of problems over the Irish border.

Hopes of agreement on the key issue were dashed on Monday when the Democratic Unionist Party made clear it would not accept any arrangement that saw Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK.

Keeping Northern Ireland in the single market is seen as being crucial in preventing the return of a hard border with the Republic – something UK ministers have pledged to avoid.

Keeping the internal market within the United Kingdom on a level playing field is crucial to Scotland, Ms Davidson argued.

The Tory leader said: “My view is therefore that, whatever happens with Brexit, we should do nothing that damages the integrity of the one union that really does keep Scotland in business.”

She spoke out as Scottish Brexit minister Mike Russell argued that keeping the whole of the UK in the single market and the customs union was the best solution to the Government’s Brexit conundrum.

He said the “reason that Theresa May is not proposing it is because she cannot get it past Boris Johnson and Liam Fox and a number of other extremists” who had campaigned for taking Britain out of the European Union.”