DUP says it will not support Boris Johnson's Brexit deal in parliament

Opposition from Arlene Foster's party leaves PM struggling to win Westminster majority for agreement with Brussels

(PA)

The Democratic Unionist Party has said it will not vote for Boris Johnson’s Brexit agreement, dealing a potentially fatal blow to the prime minister’s chances of getting it through parliament.

Arlene Foster’s party said the deal struck in Brussels was not in Northern Ireland’s long-term interest and drove “a coach and horses” through the Good Friday Agreement which underpins the peace process.

The loss of the votes of the 10 DUP MPs will make it all but impossible for Mr Johnson to get his deal through Westminster, particularly as several members of the European Research Group of eurosceptic Tories are likely to take their lead from Ms Foster.

In a statement issued shortly after Mr Johnson and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker announced they had reached agreement, the DUP said bluntly: “These proposals are not, in our view, beneficial to the economic well-being of Northern Ireland and they undermine the integrity of the Union.”

And they said: “The Democratic Unionist Party will be unable to support these proposals in parliament.”

Warning that Mr Johnson cannot expect a swift passage for his proposals through parliament, they added: “Saturday’s vote in Parliament on the proposals will only be the start of a long process to get any Withdrawal Agreement Bill through the House of Commons.”

Ms Foster has been the subject of a concerted sweet-talking campaign from Mr Johnson over the past few days, as the PM attempted to persuade her that his new plan did not breach the Unionist party’s red line of ensuring that Northern Ireland is not treated differently from the rest of the UK.

But she made clear her objection in an early-morning tweet stating that the DUP could not support his proposals on customs and consent “as things stand”.

The terse statement was followed by a lengthy evisceration of multiple elements of the deal unveiled by Mr Johnson and European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker.

The DUP complained that the consent of Northern Ireland’s politicians in a so-called "Stormont lock" was no longer required before the new arrangements could come Into force.

And they said that Mr Johnson had departed from the principle that new arrangements must be subject to the consent of both the unionist and nationalist communities - effectively removing their ability to exercise a veto on future relations with the EU.

“The principles of the Belfast Agreement on consent have been abandoned in favour of majority rule on this single issue alone,” said the DUP.

“These arrangements will become the settled position in these areas for Northern Ireland. This drives a coach and horses through the professed sanctity of the Belfast Agreement.”

(REUTERS (REUTERS)

Northern Irish consumers would be faced with increased costs and less choice as a result of customs arrangements which would leave the province’s main trading route with the rest of the UK under the rules of the EU customs union and were “not acceptable within the internal borders of the United Kingdom”, said Ms Foster’s party.

With its VAT arrangements bound into the EU, there was a “real danger that over time Northern Ireland will start to diverge across VAT and customs and without broad support from the democratic representatives of the people of Northern Ireland”, they warned.