DUP says 'no way' they will support May's Brexit deal

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

There is “no way” the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) will support Prime Minister Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, the Northern Irish party’s Brexit representative said Friday, depriving May of potentially crucial support ahead of a mid-month vote on the deal.

Sammy Wilson’s comment came after the DUP deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, said his party’s opposition to Irish border backstop proposals remained as they were following a meeting with May a day before.

DUP officials have repeatedly opposed the deal over the backstop article, which they say would give the EU an option to keep the U.K. region aligned with the union indefinitely.

The backstop article introduces Northern Ireland’s alignment with the EU unless and until a solution is found to the border problem between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. All negotiating parties have said they would not want go back to a hard border on the island of Ireland.

“It’s not just because of the regulations which Northern Ireland would be subject to with the backstop,” Wilson told the BBC, “but also the fact we would have to treat the rest of the United Kingdom as a third country, we would not participate in any trade deals which the United Kingdom may enter into in the future and we would find that there would be a border down the Irish Sea which would impede trade with our biggest trading partner, namely GB.”

The deal reached with the EU is set to face a vote in the House of Commons in mid-January, with the Labour Party, Scottish National Party, and DUP already on record against it.

May has argued that the deal needs to be rectified by the MPs or otherwise the U.K. will likely leave the bloc with no deal.

The U.K. is set to leave the EU on March 29.

No deal preparations

Around 1,000 police officers in the U.K. are to start training to deal with trouble that may arise in case of a return to the hard border in the region.

The training for officers from English forces and Police Scotland is expected to begin this month, The Guardian reported on Friday.

However, the possible deployment of English and Scottish policemen in Northern Ireland is feared to anger the local population, which saw decades of sectarian violence known as the Troubles.

There are concerns a hard border and deployment of non-local police in the region may revive old enmities in the region.

1998 Belfast Agreement

The Troubles ended in 1998 after the Belfast Agreement put an end to decades of armed struggle in the divided U.K. region of Northern Ireland.

The U.K. and the Republic of Ireland inked the deal, brokered by the U.S. and eight political parties in Northern Ireland, in April 1998.

The deal -- dubbed the “Good Friday agreement” -- largely saw the end of the Troubles-era violence, in which more than 3,500 people lost their lives.

A soft border between Ireland and Northern Ireland came with the agreement, and it was friction-free as both sides were EU members.

Power-sharing

The Good Friday agreement set a new power-sharing governance model in the region, and an executive body jointly formed by the two biggest unionist and loyalist political parties now lead the country.

It also foresees direct rule from Westminster in the event of a failure to reach a power-sharing deal.

The previous administration in the U.K. region had collapsed with the resignation of its Sinn Fein Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in January 2017 over a botched energy-saving deal.

McGuinness, a key Sinn Fein figure, died shortly after his resignation and was buried after a high-profile funeral.

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) lost support in Northern Ireland elections last March but managed to remain the biggest party, with a mere single-seat margin in the Northern Ireland Assembly over Sinn Fein.

But the DUP performed strongly in the U.K. general election in June 2017. In an unprecedented political development, it has become a vital source of support for Prime Minister May in a “confidence and supply” deal.

Talks between Sinn Fein and the DUP have so far failed to form a new power-sharing government.