DUP leader Arlene Foster has accused the Irish government of forbidding the British government from showing her party the text of the Brexit agreement that was scuppered yesterday.
Asked by Sky News’ David Blevins about her phone call with Prime Minister Theresa May on Monday afternoon that saw the deal taken off the table, Foster said “I just reiterated what I’ve been saying all along. That in terms of our constitutional position, in terms of our economic position, there can be no border between the constituent parts of the United Kingdom.”
Foster hit out at the Irish government, saying “We cannot break up the United Kingdom in order to satisfy an Irish government that will not take the bona fides of a statement from our own Prime Minister that nobody wants to see a hard border in Ireland.”
The DUP leader went on to say that “one of the reasons” the DUP were not shown the text of the now-failed Brexit deal earlier on is because “the Irish government wouldn’t allow them [Brexit negotiators] to show the text.”
“Once we saw the text, we knew that it would not fly.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has steadfastly stuck to the Irish position that the text put forward yesterday should not be amended. Foster dismissed Varadkar’s calls to leave the deal unchanged, saying “The Irish Prime Minister can be as unequivocal as he likes. We’re also unequivocal in relation to these matters.”
The deal would see Northern Ireland’s regulations largely remain in line with those of the EU, rather than those of the UK.
Asked what would happen if the Tory government were to plough ahead with the deal and whether the DUP would pull support for the UK government and “open the door for Jeremy Corbyn,” Foster said she was not going to talk about hypotheticals.
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