DUP quenches dying as Johnson leads late

THE DUP last night said it would vote against Theresa May’s deal as hardline Brexiteers insisted they would not follow “cowards” who had changed their minds.

In a major blow for the Prime Minister, Arlene Foster, the Northern Irish party’s leader, said she would never agree to “something that threatens the Union”, adding that protecting the Union would “always come first”.

Mrs Foster added: “We are in a situation where we cannot sign up to the Withdrawal Agreement and it’s all because the Prime Minister decided to go for that backstop way back in December 2017.”

Her comments were echoed by Nigel Dodds, her Westminster deputy, who scotched rumours that the party could abstain in a third vote, adding: “The DUP do not abstain on the Union.”

The party said in a statement: “We want to secure the UK’S departure from, and our future relationship with, the EU on terms that accord with our key objectives to ensure the integrity of the UK. In our view, the current Withdrawal Agreement does not do so and the backstop, which we warned this Government against from its first inception, poses an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the UK and will inevitably limit the UK’S ability to negotiate on the type of future relationship with the EU.”

The DUP’S late night intervention killed growing hopes in Downing Street of a breakthrough, after Boris Johnson and dozens of other Brexiteers broke from the European Research