Theresa May's DUP allies dealt her a final savage blow tonight as they REFUSED to back her Brexit deal - despite the PM pledging to resign.
Mrs May played her last card tonight, Theresa May announces she will QUIT once her Brexit deal is through in a desperate bid to ensure Brexit.
It tipped Boris Johnson BACKS Brexit deal moments after Theresa May promises to resign into finally backing the Brexit deal that Parliament twice voted down.
But around 30 Tory Brexiteers refused to budge in a furious meeting where one, Steve Baker, said he was "consumed with ferocious rage".
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And now her allies in Northern Ireland have refused to fall in line, despite the PM spending £1bn to buy their support in 2017.
A hard-hitting statement by the party tonight said "necessary changes have not been secured" to the Irish backstop - a clause that could keep the UK locked under EU rules.
And it warned the backstop "poses an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom".
DUP leader Arlene Foster said the Brexit deal would endanger the union of the United Kingdom as she made clear her party could still not support Theresa May's Withdrawal Agreement.
She told Sky News: "What we can't agree to is something that threatens the union, that has a strategic risk to the union.
"For us in the Democratic Unionist Party, the union will always come first and that has been the issue right from the beginning of all of this."
Boris Johnson BACKS Brexit deal moments after Theresa May promises to resign
Westminster leader Nigel Dodds later told Sky News the party would vote against the deal.
"We don't abstain on the union," he told the broadcaster.
The DUP's statement in full
The DUP and the Government have had good discussions in recent days and some progress on domestic legislation has been made. All concerned recognise the need to ensure that as we leave the European Union the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom is maintained.
However, given the fact that the necessary changes we seek to the backstop have not been secured between the Government and the European Union, and the remaining and ongoing strategic risk that Northern Ireland would be trapped in backstop arrangements at the end of the implementation period, we will not be supporting the Government if they table a fresh meaningful vote.
The backstop if operational has 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.
We want to secure the United Kingdom’s departure from, and our future relationship with, the European Union on terms that accord with our key objectives to ensure the integrity of the United Kingdom.
In our view the current withdrawal agreement does not do so and the backstop, which we warned this Government against from its first inception, poses an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom and will inevitably limit the United Kingdom’s ability to negotiate on the type of future relationship with the EU.
