Davis suggests N Ireland deal could cover all UK

DUP will not accept N Ireland getting different treatment from rest of UK

The whole of the UK could align its regulations in certain areas with the EU following Brexit, David Davis has suggested.

Mr Davis was speaking as Theresa May engaged in an intensive effort to restore momentum to Brexit talks.

Irish premier Leo Varadkar said that “the ball is now in London’s court”, after Mrs May pulled out of a proposed deal when the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) made clear it would not accept proposals for “regulatory alignment” with the Republic.

In a scathing assessment of the turmoil surrounding the talks, Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer urged Mrs May to “rethink her reckless red lines” and put the option back on the table of the UK remaining within the European single market and customs union.

Mrs May was expected to speak to DUP leader Arlene Foster and Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill yesterday and is due to visit Brussels again later this week to try to finalise a divorce deal that would allow leaders of the 27 remaining EU states to give the green light to trade talks next week.

But Downing Street suggested negotiations could go right up to the wire at the leaders’ summit in the Belgian capital on December 14.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Mr Davis said the UK was now “close” to concluding the first phase of Brexit negotiations, dealing with the Irish border, citizens’ rights and the UK’s financial settlement.

He insisted the Government would not accept any deal that left Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK as the price of keeping an open border with the Republic.

But he side-stepped a demand from Jacob Rees-Mogg to make it an “indelible red line” that the UK should be able to diverge from EU rules and regulations after withdrawal.

Mr Davis stressed that “alignment” did not mean full harmonisation with EU regulations, telling MPs: “It’s sometimes having mutually recognised rules, mutually recognised inspection, all of that sort of thing as well – and that’s what we are aiming at.”

He added: “There are areas where we want the same outcome but by different regulatory methods.

“We want to maintain safety, we want to maintain food standards, we want to maintain animal welfare, we want to maintain employment rights.

“We don’t have to do that by exactly the same mechanism as everybody else. That’s what regulatory alignment means.”

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds revealed that the party was not shown the draft text of the proposed agreement on the Irish border until the “late morning” on Monday, shortly before Theresa May was expected to sign off on it in a lunchtime meeting with European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

He said they immediately informed the Government that it was “clearly unacceptable”, forcing Mrs May to break off her lunch for emergency phone talks with Mrs Foster.

“The Prime Minister has said that there will be no border in the Irish Sea, she has made it clear that the UK is leaving the European Union as a whole and that the territorial and economic integrity of the United Kingdom will be protected,” said Mr Dodds.

The PM has said that there will be no border in the Irish Sea, she has made it clear that the UK is leaving the EU

Picture: Getty Images. DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, centre, speaks to the press.