In the end, Ulster said no.
After a weekend spent carefully crafting a statement and a morning of delicate diplomatic choreography, the Democratic Unionist Party killed off a deal that would (probably) have opened a path to phase two in the Brexit talks.
Theresa May arrived in Brussels Monday hoping to secure agreement over lunch with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker that “sufficient progress” had been made in Brexit talks, the first step in convincing the remaining 27 EU leaders that negotiations could move onto trade.
“During the lunch, May got told that DUP would scrap the confidence and supply agreement if that was the deal,” one EU Brexit diplomat briefed on the matter said.
U.K. negotiators confirmed that a TV appearance by the party’s leader Arlene Foster — in which she declared “any form of regulatory divergence” separating Northern Ireland from the mainland was unacceptable — torpedoed the talks, but did not support the claim that she effectively threatened to bring down the government.
Asked what caused the deal to collapse, one very senior U.K. negotiator said: “Look at what Arlene Foster said this PM.” A senior British aide simply texted an emoji of a crying face.
Shortly after Foster’s intervention, the U.K. prime minister left her meeting with Juncker to call the DUP leader to try to stitch the deal back together, two officials familiar with the developments said — one British, the other from an EU 27 member state briefed on the talks.
For its part, the DUP, which props up May’s government in Westminster after she failed to secure a majority in June’s election, were infuriated by leaks of the proposed text earlier in the day.
The party’s Brexit spokesperson Sammy Wilson told POLITICO he thought Brussels and Dublin had treated May like “dirt” and tried to bounce the British prime minister into a deal.
Wilson added that Monday’s breakdown should have come as no surprise to May.
“There were discussions over the weekend and that language I think was put to us — convergence or whatever it is — and it was made quite clear that it was not acceptable,” he said.
In a less-than-veiled threat, he reminded May that her government depends on the DUP for support. “An agreement has two sides,” he said.
The U.K. prime minister now has 24 hours to persuade her parliamentary allies to sign up to a deal that was all but finalized.
Her aides scrambled Monday evening to rejig May’s schedule so that she can return to Brussels on Wednesday to negotiate all over again.
Within reach of a deal
Leaks of the draft EU-U.K. agreement had dripped out from Dublin, London and Brussels all day. According to U.K. officials familiar with the proposed deal, May and the Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar had found language flexible enough to suit both the Irish and the Brits.
In return for giving the go-ahead for sufficient progress, May would agree to ensure Northern Ireland remained “aligned” with the Republic of Ireland over regulations affecting north-south border issues like farming, agriculture, energy and transport. Dublin, in turn, would drop its demand for Northern Ireland to effectively remain in the single market and customs union, something unacceptable to Brexiteers.
In a press conference later in the evening, Varadkar said, “effectively a deal was done.” Without naming Foster or the DUP he added: “It is evident that things broke down and became problematic during the lunch in Brussels.”
In their own press conference, which took place without questions and lasted less than three and a half minutes, May and Juncker tried to put a brave face on the failure.
“She’s a tough negotiator, not an easy one,” the European Commission president said, opening his statement. He declared he was “very confident” of success later this week.
‘The trick is not minding’
Back home, however, the U.K. prime minister has little wriggle room.
The DUP’s 10 MPs in parliament keep her in Downing Street, meaning any deal must have their agreement. Any further watering down of the U.K.’s commitment to maintain regulatory “alignment” on the island of Ireland though, risks losing Dublin’s support.
“Mr Tusk will have to learn that the DUP negotiating approach is based on the following anecdote from the film ‘All the Presidents Men,'” a figure involved in DUP negotiations said.
“I was at a party once, and, uh, Liddy put his hand over a candle, and he kept it there. He kept it right in the flame until his flesh was burned. Somebody said, ‘What’s the trick?’ And Liddy said, ‘The trick is not minding.’
“It’s the only way that works … be prepared to do the irrational and if necessary do it.”
May’s delicate balancing act is further complicated by the political weight brought to the table on her right flank by Conservative Brexiteers — including Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Liam Fox — who are determined to ensure any deal with the EU does not permanently bind the U.K. into European regulation and restrict Britain’s ability to negotiate trade deals with countries further afield.
A meeting of the U.K. cabinet on Tuesday now promises to be crucial for ensuring political consensus for further efforts to make a breakthrough.
Conservative MPs were briefed on the negotiations by Brexit Minister Steve Baker and Downing Street Chief of Staff Gavin Barwell.
Pro-EU MP Anna Soubry told journalists outside the Westminster committee room that MPs were “given the impression” that no offer had been forthcoming from the U.K. on regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
She said MPs were told: “Nothing had certainly been agreed, but nothing had been ruled out either.”
“Nobody could want one part of our country to have a different set of rules to another part of our country,” said Soubry, who has called for the government to avoid such trade-offs by keeping the whole of the U.K. inside the single market and the customs union.
A senior Brexit-supporting MP, also speaking after the meeting, told journalists he too would not countenance Northern Ireland having different rules to the rest of the U.K. “The government doesn’t have a majority for that … Ireland wants to promote the creation of a United Ireland. That’s not very surprising,” the MP said. He accused the Irish government of a leaking a draft text of the agreement, branding the move “propaganda for a United Ireland.”
Florian Eder contributed reporting.