Tag: Democratic Unionist Party

The public clamour for political progress following the killing of the journalist Lyra McKee encouraged both governments to launch a fresh attempt to restore power sharing in Northern Ireland, they said in a statement released on Friday afternoon. We agree that what is now needed is actions and not just words from all of us who are in positions of leadership.” The new process would involve all the main political parties in Northern Ireland, together with the UK and Irish governments, it said. Theprime minister and taoiseach, who both attended McKee’s funeral in Belfast on Wednesday, also agreed that there should be a meeting of the British-Irish intergovernmental conference to consider east-west relations, security cooperation and political stability in Northern Ireland. What is the New IRA? It has been linked with four murders, including the shooting of journalist Lyra McKee in Derry in April 2019. The group is believed to have formed between 2011 and 2012 after the merger of a number of smaller groups, including the Real IRA, which was behind the 1998 Omagh bombing. She said the DUP could not accede to all Sinn Féin demands, describing such a scenario as a “5-0 victory”. McDonald, speaking in a separate media interview, said Sinn Féin would not “capitulate” on an Irish language act, saying there was nothing trivial about insisting on equality and rights. Smaller parties are keen to return to Stormont. “There is no issue more important than political stability.”

No 10 is feeling the pressure to pull the plug on Brexit talks with Labour and move to an alternative plan, amid warnings that the opposition is in no hurry for a deal before the European elections. Ken Clarke: ‘Brexit is like a parody version of student politics’ Read more However, government sources acknowledge Theresa May is under much greater time pressure than Labour, which has little incentive to do a deal before the European and local elections that are likely to result in the Conservatives suffering heavy losses to Nigel Farage’s Brexit party. Ministers and their opposition counterparts are taking part in working groups on some issues this week, but there will be no discussion before Easter on the big issues of a customs union or a confirmatory referendum, making it easy for Labour to reject the prime minister’s overtures so far. The government’s alternative plan is for MPs to thrash out an acceptable version of May’s deal through a series of votes or by amending the withdrawal bill, but experts said there was barely enough time to do this in the five weeks before the European elections. Nikki da Costa, formerly the legislative affairs director in No 10, suggested getting the withdrawal bill passed by 22 May would “require a level of legislative aggression from government not seen in this parliament”. There is also concern in No 10 that Labour may not get behind the plan to let MPs amend the withdrawal bill to find a way forward. “We don’t know if they are going to work and it may be that we need to find a way to rebuild the Conservative-DUP coalition,” Hunt said. One Conservative MEP told the Guardian that it was “cloud cuckoo land” to think European elections can be avoided at this stage. Conservative party officials are privately acknowledging the party will lose around half of their MEPs. A Tory party source said: “As is usual, Conservative candidates are expected to represent the Conservative party.”

A Downing Street source said: “This is not meaningful vote three.” The leader of the Commons, Andrea Leadsom, said MPs would sit on Friday and hold a debate on Brexit. She did not specify what sort of vote would result, and repeatedly rebuffed MPs’ questions on the subject. Leadsom said only that the vote would get around the ruling of the Speaker, John Bercow, that the same motion could not be voted on yet again. Read more Leadsom was also asked whether ministers wanted to decouple the withdrawal agreement for a separate vote, distinct from the government’s outline plan for a future relationship with the EU, but declined to specify, saying MPs would have to await the motion. The Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, who fears the motion could be “more trickery”, said it would not be illegal for the government to seek to pass just the withdrawal agreement, without MPs having a say on the plan for the future relationship. Brexit is a national crisis. Conservative sources had claimed that she and other ministers would continue talks with the pro-union party in the hope they would have the numbers to pass a deal. However, a source close to the DUP said: “No talks planned today.” May fails to convince DUP and ERG 'Spartans' to back her Brexit deal Read more The decision not to hold talks on Thursday will also fuel speculation that further talks could be shelved altogether. The DUP, whose votes give the Tories a majority in parliament, said on Wednesday that May’s Brexit deal posed “an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom” because it could impose new barriers between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Hopes that this might mean that the DUP could abstain on a future vote were dashed on Thursday night after Dodds said: “The DUP do not abstain on the union.” On Wednesday, a spokesman for the DUP said the backstop had “the potential to create an internal trade border within the United Kingdom and would cut us off from our main internal market, being Great Britain”.

As was clear from proceedings in Parliament on Wednesday night, lawmakers cannot decide on a Plan B for Brexit. And yet it's highly likely that Plan A -- the Prime Minister's deal already defeated twice in the Commons -- may be completely dead after the Northern Irish Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), on whose votes May depends, said they could never back it. The new Prime Minister's number one task will be to open the second phase of Brexit negotiations with the European Union, on a future trading relationship between the two entities. But exactly how those negotiations go will depend on the person who wins the leadership contest. Many Conservative lawmakers are insisting that the next Prime Minister must be someone who enthusiastically believes in Brexit -- such as the ex-Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson or the one-time Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab. While there will be several candidates from all wings of the party and Brexit debate, the leadership contest will be dominated by the issue of Brexit and how close a trade deal the UK should have with the EU. In theory, a staunch Brexiteer leader will likely come up with a whole new set of tough red lines for the next round of negotiations. But the most popular option, involving a softer Brexit customs union, could find its way into the post-May round of trade negotiations with the EU. What could change the metrics is, of course, a general election. Just like the Tory leadership contest, Brexit will dominate the campaign.

Theresa May’s hopes that she can force her withdrawal deal through parliament faded on Monday after the Democratic Unionist party leader, Arlene Foster, rejected a personal plea for support. In a telephone call, Foster told the prime minister she would not change her party’s stance, which is to vote against the deal, if as expected it comes before the House of Commons this week. Support from the DUP is critical to May’s hopes of getting parliament to approve her Brexit plan. DUP leaders have been unimpressed with the way May and her team have negotiated with the EU, and believe they will have to be closely involved if the government is to leave with a deal that keeps Northern Ireland closely aligned with Britain. In unusually critical language, Dodds said last week: “The government has consistently settled for inferior compromises when they didn’t need to and when there was, and is, more negotiating with the EU to be done. An informed source said: “Confidence and supply two is nearly upon us. If anything, C&S2 will have to be even tighter than C&S1. Not talking about putting people in cabinet or anything like that, but deeply involved in every decision, especially on Brexit.” The party negotiated £1bn in spending for Northern Ireland as part of a first confidence and supply agreement with the Tories in 2017 – giving the government a working majority. Claims of splits in the DUP over whether to support May’s deal have been denied by the party. A DUP spokesman said: “The party is focused on securing a way forward as we exit the EU which respects the referendum result and protects the Union.

Amid a final scramble by the prime minister to bring her informal coalition partners onboard before a probable vote this week, Jim Wells, a DUP member of the Northern Ireland assembly, said he believed up to 30 Tories would still vote against the plan. “So even with the DUP support I think it’s inevitable that Theresa May, if she pushes a third vote, will go to yet another defeat,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. While the DUP have an important role it’s not utterly crucial.” Several prominent Brexiters, including the former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey, have said they are willing to switch their vote and support the deal, with government sources saying they hope DUP backing could create “a sense of momentum”. “No deal is better than a bad deal but a bad deal is better than remaining in the European Union,” he told LBC radio. “Mrs May’s deal, however bad it is, means that we are legally outside the European Union.” A number of prominent Conservative Brexiters were still holding out against May’s deal, including Boris Johnson. In an article for the Daily Telegraph on Monday, he wrote: “If we agree this deal – and unless we have a radical change in our approach to the negotiations – we face an even greater humiliation in the second phase. “We have not found a convincing unilateral way out of the backstop. Unless we discover some willingness to resist, the diet of capitulation seems set to continue for at least two years.” Another sign of continued Conservative opposition came in a letter to the Telegraph from 23 backbenchers calling for a no-deal exit. “A widespread war-weariness on all sides is a significant factor.” However, Wells said the DUP remained undecided on whether the government had secured enough changes on the border insurance policy for the party’s MPs to back the deal. “We still have a huge difficulty with the backstop because we see it as a waiting room for constitutional change.

Government by parliament works when a party or coalition of parties can command a majority of MPs to pass laws. None of this applies today in Brexit Britain. A fortnight before the UK is due to Brexit, this country still has no agreed plan on how to do it. Politics used to be called the art of the compromise. People are much more strongly committed to their view on the EU than they are to any political party. That goes for MPs as well. A canny leader, like Wilson over the EEC in 1975, won't call a referendum unless they can be pretty sure of the likely outcome. But he gambled on membership of the EU and lost. Today the European Research Group has organised a party within a party and has repeatedly voted against the withdrawal deal painfully negotiated by its leader. In both the Labour and Conservative parties they are the ones calling the shots.

before the result of yesterday's vote on Theresa May's Brexit Deal was announced, one could be forgiven for thinking it was just an ordinary day in the British parliament. This time by 391 votes in favour to 241 against - a defeat by 149 votes. When the unimplementable promises made by the Leave campaigners before the referendum turned to dust, May's government still persevered in trying to make Brexit happen. Both parties are riven by splits on EU issues - 75 Conservatives refused to back May in yesterday's vote, with the majority of those opponents favouring a "no-deal" Brexit instead. On the Labour side, about half of the MPs do not back Corbyn's Brexit line and want the UK to hold a second referendum and stay in the EU. Meanwhile, three Conservative and eight Labour MPs have recently left their respective parties to form The Independent Group, a proto-party in the House of Commons, to try to force the idea of a second referendum onto the agenda. Throughout all of this, May and Corbyn, both of them steeped in party politics - they have each spent more than 40 years in their respective parties, refuse to seriously seek solutions collaboratively. So, the House of Commons cannot move forward. But lacking a solution, in the next fortnight the UK will crash out of the EU without a deal, with major economic and political consequences. While that idea might appeal to enough MPs, the EU side is not keen.

Conservative Brexiters have said they will assess the EU’s new assurances based on whether the UK could leave the backstop “at the time of our choosing”, with the decision likely to hinge on the revised legal advice of the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox. Joint interpretative instrument A legal add-on to the withdrawal agreement. Michael Gove said it was “make your mind up time for all of us” and that MPs would have to balance “a series of risks” when they voted on Theresa May’s Brexit deal on Tuesday evening. What we decide today will decide whether or not we will get a good relationship afterwards or whether we get spoon-fed what the EU wants us to be.” David Davis, the former Brexit secretary, said the votes of Eurosceptics “all now depends on the attorney general’s legal advice. Play Video 2:20 Jacob Rees-Mogg, who chairs the European Reasearch Group (ERG) of Eurosceptic Tories, said “many Conservatives will be heavily influenced by the DUP’s view”. The Brexit state of play: a guide to this week's crucial votes Read more The seven MPs are Nigel Dodds – the deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist party (DUP), whose opinion carries weight with Eurosceptic Conservatives – as well as the former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, the ex-ministers David Jones and Suella Braverman, the veteran Brexiter Bill Cash, and the backbenchers Michael Tomlinson and Robert Courts. May will need to convince the vast majority of Tory Brexiters and the DUP in order for her deal to pass and is likely to face continued opposition from Tory remainers, Labour and most opposition parties. Will Brexit be decided today? He said the UK’s unilateral declaration was meaningless. Starmer’s advice said: “The withdrawal agreement does not include a mechanism for unilateral exit from – or termination of – the backstop (or any other part of the agreement) even where bad faith is made out.