Boris rolls the DUP dice - Times article18 Oct 2019 23:35
After three days of trying to win round the Democratic Unionist Party to his revised withdrawal agreement, the prime minister has decided to go it alone.
Today he will sign off on the agreement in Brussels knowing that his chances of getting the deal through the House of Commons is at best slim unless there is a change of heart from his unionist allies. This is deeply unlikely, but where the DUP are concerned nothing can ever be entirely ruled out.
Reading the text of the revised withdrawal agreement, it is easy to see why the deal is unacceptable for the DUP.
For a start, although there is a new mechanism designed to give Northern Ireland a say on following EU rules and regulations after the end of the transition period, it falls far short of what the party would have liked.
For a start, Northern Ireland politicians would only be consulted on the deal four years after it has come into effect. That means that the province would be aligning itself with the EU until 2024 at the very least before being given a say on its future.
Even then, the Unionist community will not have a veto on the continuation of the arrangement. Under the plan, if a simple majority of Assembly members vote in favour of it the backstop will continue for a further four years.
Given that the DUP no longer has a majority in the assembly, they simply do not have the power to block it.
The EU has moved. In the previous backstop there was no consent mechanism at all. However, the consent mechanism that has now been adopted is very unlikely to result in a change in the status quo. The cards are stacked against the DUP and they know it.
Here is the party's dilemma. Its base will back the hardline stance and, after all the rhetoric of the past few years, would have felt betrayed if they had signed up to such a compromise. The DUP itself came to power having outflanked the UUP on the right and it knows only too well the danger of the centre ground in Northern Ireland politics.
But equally, many moderate unionist voters will be appalled by the party opposing a deal which in pure economic terms is very good news for Northern Ireland.
It offers the province the best of both worlds: pretty much frictionless access to both the British and European markets.
You could see firms currently located in the UK suddenly seeing the attractiveness of relocating.
So the party is between a rock and a hard place. For now it has decided to hold out. It has not explicitly committed to rejecting the deal when it comes before the Commons on Saturday, but the party's support looks doubtful to say the least.
And then what? If it doesn't pass, an election or even a second referendum looks likely. Neither is an attractive prospect.
For a party built on the angry rhetoric of 'no surrender', there are no good options. They may not have surrendered, but one way or the other they may well have lost.
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