Brexit: first signs of a breakthrough

Varadkar says UK-wide solution ‘remains possible’ Unionists now ‘ready to engage’ says Donaldson Government to meet DUP after ‘significant’ move

TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has said “UK-wide solutions are possible” to resolve the Brexit crisis. His comment, in a Sunday Independent article today, follows indications that senior DUP figures are now open to a ‘soft’ Brexit.

Yesterday DUP MP and chief whip Jeffrey Donaldson said the “time for megaphone diplomacy on both sides” was over. He said unionists were “ready to engage” and called for “political maturity” that the Brexit challenge demanded.

Mr Donaldson told the Sunday Independent: “I believe it is possible to arrive at a UKwide solution that protects both the integrity of the UK and the EU and avoids a hard border. Certainly such an outcome avoids a hard Brexit but it doesn’t mean the UK staying in the single market. A new free trade agreement with the EU should provide for customs arrangements that accommodate North-South cooperation without creating a regulatory border in the Irish Sea.”

The Sunday Independent understands that Mr Varadkar and Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney will now offer to meet a DUP delegation this week. Mr Varadkar will also ask all party leaders in the Dail to meet him on Tuesday to consult and confer on the situation.

As the March 29 Brexit deadline looms, the Taoiseach will also meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Netherlands PM Mark Rutte, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz and Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez this week in Davos.

Taken together, these developments indicate that positions are evolving in an urgent attempt to find a solution to the Brexit crisis.

In a break from the hardline DUP position on Brexit, Mr Donaldson yesterday said in a tweet: “Any solution must respect the integrity of both the United Kingdom and EU but also the progress made in developing relationships on these islands. This is above all about future relationships.”

He then told the Sunday Independent: “I have been concerned for some time about the level of megaphone diplomacy across the border. The absence of the political institutions, including the Assembly and North-South Ministerial Council has left the Brexit process bereft of a dialogue between Belfast and Dublin.

“This has resulted in a proposal for a backstop that now threatens to upend the entire process and result in a hard Brexit. If this is to be avoided, we all need to show the political maturity that has enabled us to achieve so much through the peace process and find our way through and out of this impasse.

“The GFA is founded on the principle of consent and in developing relationships that respect the integrity of each other’s position. An outcome that creates a border in the Irish Sea threatens this delicate balance just as much as a hard border between North and South. We need a solution that avoids both.”

A ‘soft’ Brexit arrangement with the EU, involving UK-wide customs or regulatory alignment or non-divergence, may secure sufficient support in the Commons, with the backing of the DUP and Remain-supporting Labour and Conservative party MPs, and Scottish Nationalists.

However, hard-line Tory Brexiteers have delivered an ultimatum to UK Prime Minister Theresa May, warning she will split the party if she seeks support from Labour for a watered-down Brexit plan.

In his article today, Mr Varadkar refers to the controversial Ireland ‘backstop’ element of the EU-UK withdrawal agreement document.

“We wrote it with the UK government and elements were included at their request, like the single customs territory encompassing Britain as well as Northern Ireland,” the Taoiseach writes. “Solutions and special arrangements that are specific to Northern Ireland are easier to negotiate and implement given its size and unique history and geography, but UKwide solutions are possible too.”

Last week media reports said the DUP was prepared to look at any potential new relationship with the EU that ensured there was no customs or regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

Asked on ITV if the UK government signing up to a customs union and high regulatory alignment would be acceptable to the DUP, Nigel Dodds, the party’s leader in Westminster, said: “It certainly deals with the issue of the UK being treated the same.”

Sources in Dublin last week described the media reports as “significant, if real”. However, DUP leader Arlene Foster subsequently played down reports that the party was open to a ‘soft’ Brexit as “an attempt to cause divisions”.

“For the future, we want an agreement which returns control of our money, our laws and our borders through a UK-wide free trade arrangement with the EU,” she said.

For the DUP, she added, it was the backstop that needed to be dealt with.

Last night, Mr Donaldson told the Sunday Independent that his party leader has accurately reflected “our current position” in addressing the media reports and said he had nothing to add. Certain online reaction to Mr Donaldson’s tweets referred to the Renewable Heat Incentive scandal in Northern Ireland and suggested the MP was positioning himself for the DUP leadership after the report on the cash-for-ash inquiry is published.

AS the negotiations on Brexit enter a crucial and, probably, defining phase, the need for calm heads and wise counsel has never been more essential. The options available to the United Kingdom and the EU have been narrowed and more clearly defined by recent events in the House of Commons to the point that one of three outcomes now look likely: the current withdrawal deal, heavily rejected in the Commons last week, is revived and somehow secures the necessary majority support; the UK crashes out of the EU on March 29, or the exit date is avoided through an agreed extension or a unilateral decision by the UK to revoke its resignation from the EU. One of the main, although by no means only, obstacles to the proposed withdrawal deal receiving the necessary support is the so-called backstop element which has been strongly opposed by both the Democratic Unionist Party and hard-line Brexiteers in the UK.

The darkest hour is just before dawn. Last week a chink of light could be detected from reports which indicated that the DUP may be open to a softer Brexit which kept the whole of the UK in a customs union with Brussels. These reports were subsequently, apparently, denied by the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, as an attempt to cause division. Although the words of the DUP’s astute leader at Westminster, Nigel Dodds, which hinted at an evolving situation, should be borne in mind. Asked if the UK government signing up to a customs union and high regulatory alignment would be acceptable to the DUP, he said: “It certainly deals with the issue of the UK being treated the same.” In other words, such a negotiated outcome would negate the requirement for a backstop on the Ireland question, although undoubtedly the UK Prime Minister, Theresa May, would have to reconsider her red lines in such a scenario for progress to be made. But as both Nigel Dodds and Arlene Foster also said, any movement would need to deliver on the UK’s ‘borders, jobs and money’ requirements. How to square the circle?

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, Simon Coveney, who has steadfastly maintained discussions with the DUP, last week perhaps wisely stated he was not going to comment on the tentative DUP evolving position — “they will make up their own minds”, he said. Indeed they will. In doing so, the DUP must be mindful of business interests in Northern Ireland, in particular, and the welfare of the community as a whole, while the sensitivities and nuances of the DUP’s position should be recognised by all in this country. In the Sunday Independent today, the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar hints at the possibility of a development when he states: “Solutions and special arrangements that are specific to Northern Ireland are easier to negotiate and implement given its size and unique history and geography, but UK-wide solutions are possible too.”

The question remains, can a majority be secured in the House of Commons for a soft Brexit, which after all is what the DUP advocated in its 2017 election manifesto? The possibility remains that such a majority could be secured, although it may alienate the hard Brexiteers in the Conservative Party, perhaps leading to a damaging split among the Tories. Were a House of Commons consensus, to include the DUP, to emerge around a soft Brexit however, it is likely the UK government would have to seek and would surely receive, EU approval to defer the exit date for a period of months as is provided for under Article 50.