Brinksmanship can risk chance of deal

BRINKMANSHIP can be a good thing if it helps secure one’s interests in a difficult negotiation.

But the kind of brinkmanship engaged in by Theresa May risks wrecking any chance of a Brexit deal that would not be an unmitigated disaster.

The latest crisis was, regrettably, all too predictable, given the intransigence for which Northern Ireland Unionists are legendary.

It’s taken a long time for the UK’s negotiating team to wake up to reality. For too long they were maintaining that the so-called divorce bill demanded by the EU was completely unacceptable. Boris Johnson said the EU could “go whistle”.

Now they accept that a significant bill will have to be paid.

Equally, the UK has been forced to make concessions about the rights of EU nationals.

Yesterday Theresa May thought she had reached a solution to the Irish border problem. Northern Ireland would be granted a special status, effectively remaining in the Single Market and the Customs Union, and with no hard border between it and the Republic.

The Prime Minister’s weakness was illustrated yet again when she was forced to call off the deal because it had been vetoed by the DUP’s Arlene Foster, backed by a motley collection of her own followers and hard-line English Brexiteers like Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg. It is difficult to understand the logic of the DUP’s objection to what was being proposed. From the point of view of both parts of Ireland, it would have enabled goods, services and people to flow in both directions across the border without impediment.

Such a situation is surely infinitely preferable to the alternative, which would entail some kind of hard border that would make economic and human ties more difficult. It seems that the DUP retains a visceral antipathy towards any arrangement approved of by Dublin.

Yet if Northern Ireland is not granted some kind of special status, there can only be a hard border because of the way the Single Market and the Customs Union work.

To add to the complications, Wales and Scotland were quick to demand special status too when it seemed a deal was on the cards.

It’s difficult to know how Mrs May can extricate herself from this particular mess. The DUP is unlikely to back down, but if a hard border is erected there will be a return to paramilitary activity. The Irish Government will veto any deal that compromises its interests anyway.

Unless some unexpected gamechanger emerges in the next few days, there seems little prospect of the EU authorising the start of post-Brexit trade talks with the UK.

If that happens, the likelihood is that there will be an increase in support for a second referendum on the terms we are left with at the end of the talks. However they voted in the June 2016 referendum, those who care about the prosperity of Wales and the UK as a whole must think long and hard about where we are heading.