Robert Peston Robert Peston

Theresa May’s offer to the DUP

The prime minister’s frantic last attempt to persuade Northern Ireland’s DUP to back her third meaningful vote on Tuesday involves a promise that if the controversial backstop is ever triggered, Great Britain would adopt any new food and business rules that could be forced by the EU on Northern Ireland.

This is a high risk offer by Theresa May to NI’s unionist party – which has huge clout with her because without its votes in parliament her government would collapse.

As a minister told me, for the DUP to accept the offer it would have to trust that a future prime minister and government would honour the pledge – which cannot be guaranteed even if May legislates for such alignment (because any law can always be repealed).

May’s offer falls far short of the DUP’s demand that the EU must change the so-called Withdrawal Agreement, to remove the potential for business and food regulations between Great Britain and NI to diverge – and thereby, according to the DUP, create a new kind of legal border between NI and the mainland.

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