Friday’s vote could still go to the wire
Theresa May is taking her Brexit withdrawal agreement back to the House of Commons on Friday but the chances of it passing have been hit by the Democratic Unionist Party’s refusal to vote for it.
Worries over the backstop proposal, in place to protect the Irish border, have dominated the DUP’s position on the Brexit deal, despite their agreement to back the minority Conservative government and preference to leave the EU.
“We looked at legal assurances, we looked at legislative changes to the Withdrawal Bill and things like that but all of them fell short of any kind of guarantee,” the DUP’s Sammy Wilson MP confirmed to RTÉ on Friday with the vote just hours away.
A result is expected after parliament votes at 2.30pm and, while reports suggest May’s chances of success are limited, the number of Labour MPs and previously unhappy Brexiteer Tories who cross over to vote it in may make it a close contest.
Either way, the vote is technically only on the withdrawal agreement to leave the European Union, and extend the deadline from April 22 to May 22, not the political declaration that sets out the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
In the debate leading up to the vote, Independent Unionist MP Lady Hermon pushed back against the notion that the DUP are the best representatives of Northern Ireland’s interests.
“The DUP do not speak for the majority of people in Northern Ireland,” she told the chamber.
In the same debate, Nigel Dodds MP asserted that every unionist voice is against the backstop, which the EU have refused to drop from the withdrawal agreement already negotiated with Theresa May.
“Let us be very clear, every single unionist party in Northern Ireland, never mind individual voices or business groups, agree with the position that [the backstop] is a problem for the union,” said Nigel Dodds MP in parliament on Friday morning.
