Key changes to backstop fail to bring DUP on board
Unionists prepare to vote down Johnson deal, as they say it can only harm Northern Ireland
THE DUP has said it will vote down Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal tomorrow and warned that no amount of money can win them over, despite attempts by Downing Street to offer a new financial package for Northern Ireland.
Shortly after Mr Johnson hailed “a great new deal that takes back control”, the DUP said the plan would undermine the integrity of the UK and damage Northern Ireland’s economy.
The DUP added that the deal would create a trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK that could lead to higher prices and less choice for consumers in the region.
But the biggest sticking point was the refusal to grant unionist parties in Northern Ireland a veto, which they claimed “drives a coach and horses through the professed sanctity of the Belfast [Good Friday] Agreement”.
Nigel Dodds, the DUP’S deputy, said Mr Johnson had failed to hold his nerve in talks with the EU and was “too eager by far to get a deal at any cost”.
And in an article for The Daily Telegraph, DUP MP Sammy Wilson said his party did not want to thwart Brexit but could not sign up to any deal that harms Northern Ireland.
“Unlike the Remain cabal in Parliament, we do not want to thwart the Prime Minister’s objective of taking us out of the EU,” Mr Wilson wrote.
It came amid reports that Downing Street had floated a new financial package for Northern Ireland to win the DUP’S support, but this was dismissed by party sources in Belfast.
“Money solves nothing,” a DUP source told The Telegraph, stressing that a de facto veto on the arrangements for Northern Ireland had to be added to the Brexit deal. Privately, the DUP is doubtful that any more concessions will be won by Mr Johnson, but the door remains open to more talks if the deal is rejected by MPS.
The principle of consent laid out by the Good Friday Agreement ensures any major change that affects Northern Ireland has the backing of both Irish nationalists and unionists.
But Mr Johnson’s deal will allow the Northern Ireland Assembly to give the green light with a simple majority – leaving the DUP powerless to stop it.
The trouble began at dawn yesterday when the DUP published a statement that warned the deal fell short in three key areas: consent, customs and VAT.
Despite this, the Prime Minister announced the deal at 10.35am on Twitter. When that tweet flashed up on mobile phones and computer screens at the DUP’S headquarters in Belfast, the response was surly. “Good for him,” said one party source.
Sources in Belfast say that the majority of the DUP MPS were leaning towards supporting the Prime Minister earlier this week, but were swayed three hardliners: Gregory Campbell, Mr Dodds and Mr Wilson.
Critics of the DUP’S position point to polls that suggest a majority in Northern Ireland support a special economic status where the region stays aligned with EU rules on customs and product standards to avoid a hard border.
Last night, Lord Trimble was scrutinising the deal’s text to confirm if the DUP’S fears were substantiated.
He warned that the proposals “would certainly be against the spirit of the agreement” if they did not allow both unionists and nationalists to consent to any changes to Northern Ireland’s constitutional status.
Mr Johnson has secured several key changes to the backstop, but this was not enough for the DUP.
The backstop has been replaced with a new “protocol”, which keeps Northern Ireland aligned with the EU’S rules on goods and, to some extent, on customs. This would mean checks on goods and customs would be carried out in the Irish Sea, rather than on the 310-mile long land border.
However, Northern Ireland would charge UK tariffs on goods entering its territory, unless they were headed south to Ireland. In that scenario, an EU tariff would be applied.
In cases where goods stay in Northern Ireland, and the UK tariff is cheaper than the EU tariff, then the UK tariff would be applied.
At the end of the transition period, expected to be in 2021 or 2022, the assembly would vote on whether to maintain those arrangements. If a simple majority voted in favour of keeping the arrangements, they would stay in place for four more years.
If Stormont subsequently voted to remove the arrangements, then a twoyear cooling-off period would begin and alternative arrangements sought.
If those attempts fail, then Northern Ireland would no longer be subject to EU rules and regulations, which would create a hard border. However, as most parties are opposed to a hard border, the chances of voting to cease EU alignment are highly unlikely.