Chancellor accused as DUP talks stall
Sources claim the Chancellor is ‘nitpicking’ over airport taxes to buy time for his EU agenda
Philip Hammond has been accused of preventing Theresa May from sealing her pact with the DUP because of a row over airport taxes in Belfast. Whitehall sources blamed “nitpicking” by the Treasury for the failure to reach an agreement after two days of negotiations.
‘Anything involving the Treasury is cumbersome. I am not sure Mr Hammond wants these talks to succeed’
PHILIP HAMMOND has been accused of preventing Theresa May from concluding her pact with the DUP because of a row over airport taxes in Belfast.
Whitehall sources blamed “nitpicking” by the Treasury for the fact that no agreement had been reached by last night following two days of talks.
The Daily Telegraph has been told that the deal is “95 per cent agreed” but a key stumbling block is a demand by the DUP for an end to Air Passenger Duty at Northern Ireland’s airports, which has been described as “an anchor on tourism” to the province because the taxes are not levied in the Republic of Ireland.
Mrs May’s hoped-for deal with the DUP, which she is depending on to be able to govern, could now be delayed until next week, meaning Brexit talks and the Queen’s speech could both be put back until later this month.
One Tory source even suggested Mr Hammond might be deliberately “footdragging” to delay Brexit talks and give him more time to argue for a softening of the Government’s position on Brexit.
Mrs May will face a showdown over the DUP deal with the Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams in Downing Street today. The Prime Minister has invited Mr Adams and the leaders of Northern Ireland’s other main political parties to No 10 in the hope of breaking the deadlock over Stormont power-sharing talks.
But her conversation with Mr Adams and Sinn Fein’s Stormont leader Michelle O’neill will be dominated by the proposed DUP deal.
Mrs O’neill yesterday warned the Prime Minister that she must do nothing to “undermine” the peace process in Ulster. The former Conservative prime minister Sir John Major had previously warned Mrs May that making a deal with the DUP could result in violence returning to Northern Ireland.
The Queen’s Speech, originally scheduled for next Monday, could be put back as far as June 27.
Several financial issues remain unresolved between the parties: one of the most complex revolves around Air Passenger Duty (APD).
The Government has already given the Stormont executive the power to scrap APD on long-haul flights, but passengers on short-haul flights must still pay a tax of £13 each way.
The DUP wants the Treasury to give it the power to scrap the tax, but Mr Hammond is said to be concerned that if he gives Northern Ireland an opt-out it will mean Scotland also has to be given extra cash under the Barnett formula, which determines how funds are allocated to the devolved powers.
The delay means Mrs May could be forced into the humiliating position of starting Brexit talks next week without having formed a Government.
A Tory source said the Chancellor was trying to garner support from colleagues in the Cabinet and the Con- servative Party for a watered-down Brexit deal that involved staying in the customs union, which would give the UK access to the single market but prevent it from making its own trade deals with the rest of the world.
The source said: “Anything involving the Treasury is cumbersome. I am not sure Philip Hammond wants these talks to succeed.”
EU negotiators have said that Mrs May needs to end the “uncertainty” surrounding her ability to command a working majority in Parliament before Brexit talks begin.
With no DUP deal in place last night, Mrs May will come under huge pressure from Sinn Fein over the proposed pact when she meets its leaders today.
Mrs O’neill hinted that she might demand the scrapping of the DUP deal if it threatens the Good Friday Agreement, which commits the UK and Irish governments to demonstrate “rigorous impartiality” in their roles as co-guarantors of the peace process.
Mrs O’neill said: “I will be making it very clear that any deal between the Tories and the DUP cannot be allowed to undermine the Good Friday and subsequent agreements.
“It’s imperative that both [British and Irish] governments recommit to the word, spirit and implementation of the Good Friday Agreement if there is to be any prospect of re-establishing the [Stormont] executive.”
Mrs O’neill added: “Progress will not come from a deal between the DUP and Tories to prop up a government in Westminster with an austerity and Brexit agenda but through the full implementation of the agreements and an executive that respects the rights and delivers for all in society.”
As well as Sinn Fein, Mrs May has invited the DUP, the SDLP, the UUP and the Alliance Party to Downing Street.
The Stormont Assembly has been suspended since January and the Government has said the parties must reach an agreement on the makeup of the Assembly by June 29 or direct rule will be re-imposed from Westminster.
Bucket-loads of hysterical criticism have been hurled at Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) since they began talks with Theresa May about a confidence and supply deal. “Bigots”, “homophobes” and “potential destroyers of the peace process” – the insults have been coming thick and fast. A typical tweet reads: “Do you want the Northern Ireland peace process to fail? Do you want us to get bombed again? Do you want more anti-lgbt, anti-womens’ rights on a platform. No!”
What’s really got social media’s knickers in a twist is the DUP’S social conservatism. If you think that commitment to single-sex marriage and a woman’s right to choose in Northern Ireland are the most important issues in the politics of the United Kingdom, then you are unlikely to smile on the DUP. However, if you knew the party accepts civil partnerships and has a view of abortion shared by most political parties in Ireland North and South, you might relax. You could also bear in mind that the DUP has a female leader.
In fact, for the Tories, in many ways the DUP are as good as it gets.
For a start, the parties are in basic agreement about the big stuff. The DUP are intensely patriotic, and like the Tories are staunch supporters of the monarchy, Trident, Nato and the security services. In consequence, there is no possibility of them ever casting a flirtatious eye at a Labour Party led by IRA sympathisers.
The differences are not dealbreakers. On security issues, the DUP are slightly to the Right of Tory Central and, on austerity, slightly to the Left. They’re unhappy about means-testing the winter fuel allowance, want to maintain the pensions triple-lock and would like to spend more on defence, especially cyber-security and counter-terrorism, as well as industrial investment.
On Brexit there is broad agreement with the Prime Minister’s strategy, but the DUP wishes the UK to give high priority to Ireland during negotiations and to display adroit diplomacy and technological ingenuity to avoid the return of a hard border wanted by no one except smugglers.
And now to the matter of the peace process, about which several people who ought to know better, including former secretary of state for Northern Ireland Shaun Woodward, have been talking alarmist rubbish. Fuelled by Sinn Fein’s customarily clever propaganda, a view has developed that any deal means that the Secretary of State can no longer be accepted as an honest broker, so the Executive will not be reinstated, the 1998 Good Friday Agreement will disintegrate and violence will break out again.
Here are just a few facts that undermine that particular narrative.
The agreement is almost 20 years old, is well embedded and is guaranteed jointly by the British and Irish governments whose secretary of state and foreign minister respectively act as mediators. And almost no one wants terrorists back.
Like all major parties in the South, Ireland’s governing Fine Gael party is already in favour of Irish unity. And the Conservative and Unionist Party will not become any more unionist because it’s cosying up to the DUP.
Tony Blair claimed to be impartial at a time when Northern Ireland’s then main nationalist party, the Social Democratic and Labour Party, was Labour’s sister party. And after the 2010 hung parliament, Gordon Brown set that same Shaun Woodward to devise an economic package that would buy the support of the DUP.
As for Sinn Fein, whose hypocrisy is world-class, they are frantic to enter coalition in the Republic of Ireland, where they are the third-largest party. But because they were embarrassed by budget compromises they had to make in government up North that played badly in the South, they brought down the Northern Ireland Executive, forced an assembly election and still put up bogus barriers to reinstating it. Is anyone suggesting that if Sinn Fein were in government in the republic they would be impartial?
The DUP leader – a rural solicitor who saw her father and several friends injured by IRA attacks – has with good grace sat in government with EX-IRA people and their apologists. Her wish-list is, she says, utterly in the national interest. Theresa May can count herself lucky.