Dup

For the third time, the UK government finds itself at odds with its allies, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party. The DUP chose to vote against Boris Johnson’s deal on Saturday by supporting the Letwin amendment. They will surely do so again when the meaningful vote is finally taken this week. But this time there is less DUP animus against the government because relations between the DUP parliamentary group and the PM have been generally good. The Prime Minister spoke at last year’s DUP annual conference and was well received. Even though his promises at that conference are regarded by the DUP as having been broken, there can be no doubt

Reflecting on Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal, I have many questions. Why are people who rejected the possibility of Northern Ireland being subject to EU rules and regulation via a contingent backstop now embracing the certainty of that happening? How could anyone reasonably expect the DUP to sign up to something that really does make Northern Ireland a very, very different part of the Union? Something they were repeatedly promised would never be conceded. Why are none of the people who used to be furious about the ‘£39 billion’ (actually less now but never mind) objecting to paying it now? Why shouldn’t MPs have at least a superficial analysis of the

Here we go. As Boris Johnson heads to Brussels today for the EU council summit, hope inside government that Johnson will be able to pass a provisional deal in the Commons this Saturday is fading. Despite progress in talks between the UK, Brussels and Ireland, the Prime Minister is yet to successfully convince his confidence and supply partner – the DUP – to back what is being proposed. In a statement released this morning, Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds said: ‘As things stand, we could not support what is being suggested on customs and consent issues, and there is a lack of clarity on VAT.’ They go on to say

It is the morning after the Bercow before, and it seems pretty much certain that there won’t be a meaningful vote 3 until after the European Council. Whatever is decided there on an extension, should be enough for the government to say that the package is different enough to justify bringing it back for another vote. But there is no point in the government bringing it back for another vote unless it has a chance of winning that vote, and it won’t have that without the DUP. I understand that these negotiations are going relatively well. But one of those familiar with DUP thinking tells me that one concern they

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

The DUP has confirmed that it will be voting against Theresa May’s Brexit deal this evening. A party spokesman said that ‘sufficient progress has not been achieved at this time’ and that ‘it is clear that the risks remain that the UK would be unable to lawfully exit the backstop were it to be activated’. Along with the European Research Group’s recommendation to vote down the deal, this means that the Prime Minister’s strategy of trying to win over the DUP and the Brexiteers in her own party has failed. It means that she is facing a landslide defeat tonight. The Commons benches behind the Prime Minister as she is

On Monday, Theresa May must return to the House of Commons and lay out her Brexit Plan B following the government’s historic defeat on her preferred deal. After losing that vote by 230 votes, even May’s closest allies believe she must propose something different to her Plan A. In that vein, the Prime Minister has been meeting with MPs from across the House in a bid to work out what Brexit deal can command a majority in the Commons. So far the groups who have gone to see her have demanded rather different things. The Green’s Caroline Lucas is after a second referendum (the government has issued a one-page document

Westminster might it be on its Christmas holidays, but the question that is still on everyone in government’s mind is can Theresa May find a way to get the DUP to back her Brexit deal. As I write in The Sun this morning, key Cabinet Ministers believe that her only chance of winning the meaningful vote comes from getting the DUP on side. One Secretary of State who has kept open lines of communication with them, tells me that ‘by grim necessity, they will need something more than cosmetic concessions to vote for the deal’. This minister explains that ‘the DUP want a bankable reassurance that the backstop won’t be

MPs and ministers who had settled down in Parliament on Tuesday evening for a late night of votes on the finance bill were given an early reprieve – all votes were off. However, rather than an early Christmas present from No.10, the shelving of votes on the finance bill was down to a reason out of Theresa May’s control: no working majority. With the DUP abstaining for a second day over grievances with the EU withdrawal text, the government decided to concede all amendments to the bill – including one from the SNP. It’s not clear they would have lost on every single amendment but after the antics of Monday

Oh dear. Theresa May’s confidence and supply agreement with the DUP is on very thin ice – if not already dead – after the party’s MPs abstained on a range of amendments to the finance bill and even voted en masse for a Labour amendment. This is in breach of the party’s deal with the Conservatives – the row has been triggered by May’s Brexit deal. However, it’s not just May who has been caused a headache by last night’s Commons antics. The DUP voted for a Labour amendment to the finance bill calling on the Treasury to produce impact assessments of the budget on inequality and child poverty. Yet

Although Theresa May looks set to avoid a confidence vote for the time being, tonight’s Finance Bill votes could serve to undermine her authority further. Government whips have spent the day frantically trying to persuade swing MPs to vote with the government against a series of amendments. Those efforts have been rather fruitless in some respects – with the government already forced to concede on the Jo Johnson backed amendment calling for the Treasury to publish a comparison of the impact of the Brexit deal with the impact of Britain’s existing terms with the EU. Adding to May’s woes is the fact the DUP have abstained on most of the votes.

Sir: What James Forsyth calls ‘the EU plan’ to keep Northern Ireland in the customs union after Brexit (‘The Irish problem’, 20 October) would no more ‘ease Northern Ireland away from the UK and push it more towards Dublin’s orbit’ than it has already done itself through numerous legislative differences. With regard to social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, Northern Ireland is far closer to the Republic (as it once was) than to the rest of the UK. It would therefore be no great stretch to avoid awkwardness of land border checks (and respect the spirit of the Good Friday Agreement) by having such checks at the sea ports.

Things are escalating fast in the row between the government and the DUP. Yesterday’s threat to vote against the Budget was followed by them abstaining on the agriculture bill. The message is clear: if we don’t like what you sign up to on the backstop, we’ll make it impossible for you to govern. So, what is going on here? Well, a large part of it — as Katy Balls says on Coffee House — is about trust. The DUP suspect Downing Street and the civil service, in particular, of being ready to sell them out, and so aren’t inclined to believe their assurances. One of the other problems, I am

The threat that the DUP might vote against the Budget if it isn’t happy with where the Irish border backstop is after the October European Council all fits with their effort to persuade Number 10 that they really are serious. As I say in tomorrow’s Spectator, some in government believe that, ultimately, May is going to have to call the DUP’s bluff on extra regulatory checks in the Irish Sea. They argue that the DUP will never risk putting Jeremy Corbyn, a man who favours a united Ireland and was deeply sympathetic to the IRA, in Downing Street. But I understand that the DUP have privately emphasised to several Cabinet Ministers

Just over twelve hours after Arlene Foster released a statement which appeared to suggest the DUP were ready to fudge their red lines on the Irish border, the party leader popped up on BBC Ulster to make clear that this is not the case. In an interview this morning, Foster said ‘there cannot be any barriers between ourselves and the rest of the United Kingdom’: BBC: Would you entertain checks being applied to goods being imported from Great Britain? AF: No because there are many instances as to when… if you take someone getting goods in Northern Ireland coming from Great Britain those would be checked as they come into

Never one to shy away from a platitude, the shadow attorney general, Shami Chakrabarti, has declared that the PM must reform abortion law in Northern Ireland on the basis that women there “have been let down by privileged women and men for too long” and that, so far as Theresa May is concerned, “the test of  feminists is whether they stick up for all women”. So far as this woman is concerned, I’ve been trying to work out the logic of these observations in terms of the abortion question and failing, so let’s just give up and cut to the chase. Abortion is a devolved issue in Northern Ireland and

The DUP were shown an early draft of Brussel’s proposed legal text by the UK government ahead of its publication on Wednesday. After the painful lesson of December when Arlene Foster almost pulled the plug on Theresa May’s plan to achieve ‘sufficient progress’ after she was not consulted on the wording, the government is learning from its mistakes. So, when the DUP got up at PMQs and asked what the Prime Minister thought of it, they already knew the answer. ‘They’ve learnt their lesson from the last time,’ a DUP source explains. ‘That wording from Brussels was like a letter to santa, it’s a fiction. But we knew it was coming.’ It’s

Power-sharing talks at Stormont have dramatically collapsed again. This is a shock to many in Northern Ireland, where an apparent thawing in the relationship between the DUP and Sinn Fein led to speculation that the announcement of a deal was imminent. Instead, the stasis continues. Northern Ireland has now been without a functioning government for just over 13 months, since Sinn Fein first plunged Northern Irish politics into limbo by pulling out of their pact with the DUP in January 2017. The reason for their decision to back out of the power sharing agreement was Arlene Foster’s apparent complicity – which she has denied – in the botched ‘cash for ash’