Governments are ‘DUP-ed’ in Brexit talks

With one phone call yesterday, DUP leader Arlene Foster erected a barricade along the Border bearing the legend: “Not an inch”.

The narrative that unravelled messily yesterday was a textbook illustration of something that was too good to be true.

From mid-morning, the sounds coming from Brussels were really positive. Officials from the EU and Britain had agreed a text that would allow “regulatory alignment” between North and South. In such a scenario there would be no need for a hard Border.

The word from the emergency Cabinet meeting was the deal was very close to agreement and that the deal would be sealed at lunch in Brussels by EU Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and British prime minister Theresa May.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar briefed Opposition leaders on the shape of what was agreed.

RTÉ Europe editor Tony Connelly was reporting the key phrase “regulatory alignment” between North and South.

As we report in our lead story todaythe agreed text read as follows: "The UK remains committed to protecting North-South co-operation and a guarantee to avoiding a hard Border. The UK's intention is to achieve these objectives through the overall EU-UK relationship."

On the face of it, it is surprising that May made such a big concession. Allowing regulatory alignment between North and South would result in divergence between Northern Ireland and Britain, and also between Ireland and Britain.

Northern Ireland does four times as much trade with the rest of the UK as it does with Ireland. In the Republic, we also do far more trade with Britain that with the North.

Politically, it sounded like a neat and alluring solution. But there would be downsides, and these might outweigh the benefits, even for the South. I’m not sure they have been fully thought through and sounded out.

But regardless of the merits it seems nobody told the DUP about the lunch.

The DUP’s reaction was instantaneous. As London Editor Denis Staunton writes, with an adroit Cluedo analogy: “But in Westminster and in Dublin, nobody was in any doubt about the identity of the culprit – it was Arlene Foster, in Stormont, with the telephone.”

All of the broadsheets here and across the Irish Sea are ad idem the DUP sabotaged the lunch and the deal before the dessert could be savoured.

Foster’s key line, repeated ad nauseam yesterday, was: “We will not accept any form of regulatory divergence which separates Northern Ireland economically or politically from the rest of the United Kingdom. The economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom will not be compromised in any way.”

There is also consensus that the whole exercise was a fiasco. The Tories have a confidence-and-supply agreement with the DUP. On the face of it, it seems inconceivable May was willing to make such a huge concession without running it past Foster.

Another theory is that Foster might have seen the proposal but only reacted yesterday when hardliners in her own party kicked up. I find that hard to believe. It’s hard to see Foster agreeing to such a text given that she argued so cogently against such a scenario last week.

Whatever, it’s another example of May’s failings when it comes to political judgment, assessing the political climate, and trying to build some consensus. That is why the longer she survives, the greater the certainty that Jeremy Corbyn will be the next British prime minister.

It is hard to think he could have performed more ham-fistedly.

And the outcome is yet another EU deadline passes. We have only 15 months to Brexit, and little that has happened to date can give confidence.

There will now be a frantic effort to find a solution before another arbitrary deadline later this week - and ahead of next week’s summit.

Yesterday, we were all DUPed.