BREXIT Irish border fears remain as May’s Brexit deal on the line in Parliament

Some Ulster unionists prefer PM’s plan to Tory infighting that may jeopardise peacetime gains

There is no thought given to crossing an international border on the only year-round ferry service that travels between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The invisible line has been the sticking point in Britain’s Brexit talks with the EU.

While the two sides sealed a draft deal last week its announcement took Theresa May, the British Prime Minister, to the brink. Ministers quit and were replaced as Downing Street prepared for a Conservative party leadership challenge.

On the ferry, the fight against corrosion was taking up crew member George Rooney’s time and energy. Using a chemical spray allowed him to attack rust spots and watch as the damage just melted away. There is no such solution to the all-consuming topic of Brexit.

“Everybody is talking about it,” Mr Rooney says. “Nobody wants chaos but what can you do? You just have to hope for the best.”

The staff were preparing the ferry for a busy day yesterday when 300 cyclists were expected to make the 15-minute journey around a sandbank on Carlingford Lough, which was once patrolled by British and Irish gunboats enforcing territorial rights.

The vulnerability of the ferry operation to changes in economic conditions is obvious. An incoming boat on trip carried one vehicle and the return journey also ran with just a single passenger.

It is only the second winter the service has run – another small milestone in the increasing integration of the border economy since the Good Friday Agreement ended terrorism in Ireland two decades ago.

Around the shores, the effects of Brexit have already cast doubts over how much of everyday life might be preserved in the coming months.

Kevin Kennealy, who works in the Northern Irish fishing port of Kilkeel, makes the five-hour journey there from his home in Galway twice a week.

“No one can tell us what’s going to happen but we can see Brexit is already having an effect,” Mr Kennealy says. “The cost of living has gone up and uncertainty has risen. If we are shut out of the market for the fish we land it’s not going to be easy to cope with.”

But on the quays the defiance that led the British fishing industry to back a leave vote in 2016 remains. To most, the dominance of European boats in UK waters is something that Brexit must reverse.

“When I, like a lot of the fishermen here, decided to vote leave it was because of the impact its policies had on our industry,” Alan McCulla says.

“We saw what the EU was turning into in the fishing industry and could only imagine what it would do to other walks of life.”

David Roper, who is from Scotland but works locally, is convinced that Britain can take a firm stance. He believes Europeans would not cut off the UK industry in a no-deal scenario.

“They can’t,” Mr Roper says. “Europe has very high demand for fish and British waters provide that catch. They need us.”

Mrs May stabilised her leadership on Friday after attempts to organise a vote of no confidence among Conservative party members failed to secure the required numbers.

She replaced the two ministers who quit after a five-hour meeting that endorsed the agreement with Brussels.

Yet the hardline leavers remain unhappy with the accord and five senior Conservatives – Michael Gove, Liam Fox, Andrea Leadsom, Penny Mordaunt and Chris Grayling – are meeting this weekend to plot changes to the deal.

Even so, they are lobbying from within. Mr Fox used a speech on Friday to warn the agreement was broadly as good as it gets.

“I hope across Parliament we recognise that a deal is better than no deal and businesses require certainty,” he said. “It’s in our national interest to provide certainty as soon as possible.”

Leo Varadkar, the Irish Prime Minister, joined other European leaders in telling Britain that the 585-page withdrawal agreement could not be unpicked in another round of talks.

“If you start trying to amend it or unthink it, you might find that the whole thing unravels,” Mr Varadkar said.

Northern Ireland’s staunchly British Democratic Unionist Party played a key role at Westminster last week, rejecting the deal and putting its support for Mrs May’s minority government on the line. But its stance has come under fire.

Political commentator Alex Kane told BBC radio that the party’s fury was not shared by many in its own unionist community, and the influential Ulster Farmers Union took the rare step of challenging the party’s position and backing Mrs May’s proposal.

“We want to make sure we avoid a no-deal,” its leader Wesley Aston said. “We would support the deal going through, and against that background we would ask the DUP to consider voting for this deal.”

The inclusion of a so-called backstop for Northern Ireland if London and Brussels cannot agree on a long-term trade deal is regarded by the DUP as threat to the province’s place inside the UK.

“There are serious constitutional and economic implications of this deal for Northern Ireland,” said Sir Jeffery Donaldson, a key MP for the party.

No one can tell us what’s going to happen but we can see Brexit is already having an effect KEVIN KENNEALY Fisherman at Kilkeel