I am closing this liveblog now. Thank you so much for joining us and thanks to all those who took the time to comment.
My colleagues Daniel Boffey, Jennifer Rankin and Anushka Asthana have this report on the day’s events.
Theresa May’s political weakness was brutally exposed to Brussels on Monday as an agreement struck between Britain and the EU to solve the problem of the Irish border and move to the next phase of Brexit talks was torpedoed by a last-minute telephone call with the leader of the Democratic Unionist party.
Live Irish PM says he is ‘disappointed’ UK backed off a deal it had approved - Politics liveRolling coverage of the day’s political developments as they happen, including Theresa May’s meeting with Jean-Claude Juncker intended to conclude phase one of the Brexit talks and MPs debating the EU withdrawal bill.
Confidence early on Monday that an agreement was within reach came to nothing when, during a working lunch with the European commission president, Jean Claude Juncker, May was forced to pause discussions to take a call from Arlene Foster.
The unionist leader, whose party currently provides the Tories with a working majority in the Commons, told the British prime minister that she could not support Downing Street’s planned commitment to keep Northern Ireland aligned with EU laws.
Read the full story here:
Meanwhile, Dan Roberts our Brexit policy editor explains what it could all mean with this analysis piece:
May told the Press Association that the meeting with Juncker had been “constructive”, despite no deal being reached.
She added:
On a couple of issues some differences do remain which require further negotiation and consultation and those will continue.
But we will reconvene before the end of the week and I am also confident that we will conclude this positively.
Jim Pickard, chief political correspondent for the Financial Times, says that some Tory MPs are wondering if more money can be given to the DUP for them to agree to the deal.
some Tory MPs are already asking if DUP could be bought off again with yet more money, like a vending machine for political solutions
— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) December 4, 2017
My colleagues Jon Henley, Jennifer Rankin and Lisa O’Carroll have put together this explainer on the key sticking points that are holding the Brexit negotiations up.
While the Irish border remains the main roadblock in the path to the next phase of talks, citizens’ rights and the financial settlement are also key issues that need to be resolved.
Read the full story here:
Here’s how key members of the remain and leave camps reacted to the deal falling through today.
Former Ukip leader Nigel Farage called for May to “leave office now”, saying that proposals for regulatory alignment in Ireland were “a bitter betrayal”.
“Theresa May has got to go,” said Farage. “If we want to leave the EU, she’s got to leave office now.”
This UK Government’s bitter betrayal of 17.4 million people today is a concession too far, for it will lead to endless problems in Scotland and it damages the integrity of the United Kingdom.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 4, 2017
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, blamed the failure to make progress on the “grubby deal” with the DUP.
He said:
The real reason for today’s failure is the grubby deal the government did with the DUP after the election ... Each passing day provides further evidence that Theresa May’s government is completely ill-equipped to negotiate a successful Brexit deal for our country.
DUP MP and Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson said regulatory alignment was “simply EU-speak for keeping Northern Ireland inside customs union and inside the single market”.
He went on:
[Treating Northern Ireland differently] will have huge implications for her whole negotiating stance and if she gives in on special demands for Northern Ireland then she will be giving in on special demands for Scotland and other parts of the United Kingdom. It’s a unionist nightmare.
Remain supporter Anna Soubry, a Tory MP, said that no Conservatives wanted Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK. The “simple solution” would be for the whole of the UK to remain in the single market and customs union, she said.
Staying in #SingleMarket & #CustomsUnion is the best solution for everyone. It will unite our country & settle our economic future.
— Anna Soubry MP (@Anna_Soubry) December 4, 2017
The executive director of the Open Britain campaign against hard Brexit, James McGrory, agreed:
There is a solution that would solve all of these problems for the government, which is to keep the whole of the UK in the single market and the customs union. That would avoid a hard border in Ireland, ensure a level playing field for businesses across our islands, and protect trade with the EU, which buys almost half of everything we export.
A spokesman for the Leave Means Leave campaign, which is backed by many senior Tory Brexiteers, said:
We welcome confirmation from the Prime Minister, at the earliest opportunity, that she will completely rule out any proposal to treat Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the United Kingdom.
Eloise Todd, of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain campaign, said it seemed clear that Arlene Foster and the DUP were calling the shots and now are running the government.
She added:
Labour and Conservative remain-minded MPs outnumber this sad little rump by more than 10 to one. It is time for these people to stand up and make themselves heard.
Updated
Fintan O’Toole, columnist the Irish Times, says Brexiters have underestimated the Irish border issue.
There may be some way to go, but today we moved much closer to a British climbdown on the question of the Irish border after Brexit. And this will turn an acrimonious debate on its head. So far, we’ve been talking about the implications of Brexit for Ireland. Now we have to talk about the implications of Ireland for Brexit.
It is not just that Britain’s weakness in its negotiations with the European Unionhas been made even more starkly clear. On the three issues on which “sufficient progress” had to be made – people, money and Ireland – Britain seems likely to suffer a hat-trick of defeats.
Its concessions in the talks on the border issue are not yet official, and may seem more abstract and less visceral than its retreats on the divorce bill and the rights of EU citizens in the UK; but they may prove to be much more fundamental and much more problematic for the whole Brexit project. There is a sense here of the return of the repressed: the Brexiters pretended Ireland did not exist; now it has come back to haunt their grand schemes.
Read the full opinion piece here:
Despite his mixed reputation in London, the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker, has a habit of signalling when it time to show his understanding of British tastes: a rather well-worn Burberry print tie.
It was there in May when he first travelled to Downing Street for dinner, and again a year earlier, during a commission press conference ahead of the EU referendum.
On Monday, the tie looked a crisp as ever as he greeted the prime minister for lunch on his turf, even if the egg was everywhere else.
Updated
Evening summary
If you are just catching up with this afternoon’s Brexit drama, here is a summary of what happened:
- Theresa May went to Brussels today for a key lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission.
- It was widely anticipated that the lunch would conclude phase one of the Brexit negotiations ahead of next week’s EU summit. It was thought that both sides would finally agree on the crucial issues of citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the Irish border.
-
Leaked proposals suggested May was planning to agree that Northern Ireland would remain “aligned” with EU laws in the future to avoid a hard border following an agreement with the Irish Republic.
- Within minutes of the agreement being made public, the DUP insisted both publicly and in a call with May, that they had not agreed to it.
- Scotland, Wales and London all united in demanding same EU deal as Northern Ireland.
- In a press conference following the lunch, Juncker announced that despite their best efforts, “it was not possible to reach a complete agreement today.” May added that two main issues remain unresolved.
- The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg said the deal had been “sunk” by the DUP, which reacted angrily to reports of concessions on the Irish border issue and whose support May is relying on in parliament.
-
Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, announced he was “disappointed and surprised” that the draft text agreed by Dublin was not signed off by the UK and EU today. He said May agreed a deal she could not subsequently deliver.
You can read the full story here:
This is Nicola Slawson taking over from Andrew Sparrow.
The Liberal Democrats are unimpressed with Theresa May’s performance today. They are also calling for a second referendum on the Brexit deal, when the deal is finally decided presumably.
Tom Brake, the party’s Brexit spokesperson, said:
Once again Theresa May has come out of Brexit talks with her tail between her legs. It is the same old story, another day, another failed negotiation with the EU.
This government have now realised that Brexit Britain isn’t going to be a land of milk and honey.
This whole situation could have been solved by keeping the entire country in the single market and the customs union. Instead Theresa May has cowered in front of her backbenchers and driven forward a reckless Brexit which risks destabilising the whole UK.
As each day goes by, it becomes clearer that the best deal for everyone is to stay in Europe. The people of the UK must be given a vote on the deal and an opportunity to exit from Brexit.
Updated
This is from Colum Eastwood, leader of the nationalist SDLP party in Northern Ireland:
For months, the SDLP has been making the case that the only way to avoid a hard border and a hard Brexit on the island of Ireland is to maintain membership of the single market and the customs union. However you want to label it, the end result must be the same.
Reports today that the UK could concede the principle that there must be ‘continued regulatory alignment’ with the rules of the single market and the customs union across Ireland, particularly in areas of north/Ssuth cooperation is a positive move.
The Brexit negotiations must be driven by the best interests of people on these islands, not by narrow isolationist ideology. All steps must be taken to protect the north’s economy, our political progress and the terms of the Good Friday agreement. That has long been the position of the European Union. It is welcome that the British government now seems to be accepting that position.
The DUP now must move to act in Northern Ireland’s interest, not simply serve the their own interests.
That’s all from me for today.
My colleague Nicola Slawson is now taking over.
Updated
At the meeting for backbench Conservative MPs with the prime minister’s chief of staff,Gavin Barwell, and the Brexit minister Steve Baker, several MPs said they were alarmed by the earlier leaked statements. Theresa Villiers, the Brexit-backing former Northern Ireland secretary, asked the question up front, if alignment was a possibility, but sources said the reply was non-committal.
The influential Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg said that Tory MPs would not allow the regulation even of Northern Ireland to be aligned with the EU.
“We cannot align the regulation of one part of the United Kingdom with the European Union. If we align the whole of the United Kingdom then we haven’t left the European Union so there is a logical impossibility of doing what the Irish government proposes,” he told reporters outside the meeting of backbench Conservative MPs.
Rees-Mogg said the DUP and the Conservative party were in total agreement. He said:
Gavin Barwell made it absolutely clear. As he said, we are not going to trade on distinctions between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. That would be completely intolerable. We are the Conservative and Unionist party after all.
Asked if MPs had been told that different regulatory systems were possible, Rees-Mogg said:
I don’t think that could possibly happen, the government doesn’t have a majority. The suggestions so far are coming from the Irish government.
The Irish government leaked a document which isn’t the case, as far as I can tell. It has caused everybody to be concerned. It was reported as if it was true, and now it turns out it was propaganda from the Irish government.
Former minister Anna Soubry said the simple solution would be for the UK to stay in the single market and the customs union. She said:
Nobody could want one part of our country to have a different set of rules to another part of the country. On that, Jacob and I are absolutely agreed. The sense in the room is that nobody wanted that. If we stay in the single market, that solves the problem.
Updated
Leave Means Leave, the successor organisation to Leave.EU, says Theresa May should not agree a deal that involves treating Northern Ireland separately to the rest of the UK. A spokesman said:
Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom and it must therefore leave the EU on exactly the same terms.
Reports to the contrary are deeply concerning.
We welcome confirmation from the prime minister, at the earliest opportunity, that she will completely rule out any proposal to treat Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the United Kingdom.
Sturgeon says Scotland will lose out if Northern Ireland gets special Brexit deal
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, has said that allowing Northern Ireland to become the only part of the UK with special access to the single market would undermine the Scottish economy, and underlined the case for Scottish independence.
Northern Ireland’s economy is substantially weaker than Scotland’s but Sturgeon said in a lengthy statement that an open borders deal with Ireland would put Scotland “at a double disadvantage” on jobs and investment, by boosting Northern Ireland’s trade and business links at the expense of other parts of the UK.
Sturgeon insisted an Irish deal made all the UK government’s arguments against the same for Scotland redundant. “Indeed, if Northern Ireland is effectively kept in the single market it makes it all the more vital for Scotland’s national and economic interests that we are too,” she said.
Varadkar says UK 'not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier'
Here are more quotes from the Leo Varadkar at the press conference.
The Irish negotiating team received confirmation from the British goverment and the Barnier taskforce that the United Kingdom had agreed a text on the border that met our concerns.
This text would form a part of the broader EU/UK agreement on phase one (of the Brexit negotiations) and allow us all to move on to phase two.
I am surprised and disappointed that the British government now appears not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier today. I accept that the prime minister has asked for more time, and I know that she faces many challenges and I acknowledge that she is negotiating in good faith.
But my position and that of the Irish government is unequivocal and is supported by all the parties in Dail Eirann and I believe the majority of people on these islands. Ireland wants to proceed to phase two - It’s very much in our interests to do so. However we cannot agree to do this unless we have firm guarantees that there will not be a hard border in Ireland under any circumstances.
Varadkar says 'things broke down, became problematic during lunch in Brussels'
Leo Varadkar, the Irish taoiseach, has said he is “disappointed and surprised” that the agreement reached between Ireland and Britain this morning was no longer acceptable to Theresa May.
He refused to “ascribe blame” on the Democratic Unionist party for scuppering today’s announcement and said he was “happy” to give the prime minister more time to get domestic support for the proposal which was agreed just before May sat down to lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker in Brussels.
“I don’t think it would be helpful for me to ascribe any blame. It is evident that things broke down, became problematic during the lunch in Brussels,” Varadkar told reporters.
His deputy foreign minister had gone on national radio just after 1pm to announce that a deal was close with “a positive statement for the country” from the taoiseach planned for the afternoon.
But the deal started to go sour just before a 2.30pm press conference at government buildings, when in a hastily arranged press briefing the DUP made it clear it would not tolerate any deal that separated it from the United Kingdom with party leader Arlene Foster accusing Varadkar of trying to stitch up a deal unilaterally.
Varakdar said he believed this was a hitch and everything could still be salvaged.
“We believe it [the agreement] stands and we believe the prime minister needs a bit more time and we are happy to allow here more time if that is what is needed, there is plenty of time between now and 14 December,” he said.
“The text was agreed this morning, we haven’t received any requests of changes to that,” said Varadkar.
We were happy to accept, convergence, no divergence or regulatory alignment, all those things essentially mean the same thing.
If we can’t reach an agreement by 14 December then we can’t move on to phase two of negotiations. But Ireland wants to move on to phase two, we want to talk about the transition period, because that’s what people need to make plan.
Updated
Some of the questions regarding the DUP that were being bowled to Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar are perplexing.
One in particular asked if the ‘hard men’ of the DUP had leaned on Arlene Foster and forced her hand to reject the EU-Irish backed deal for Northern Ireland. (See 5.33pm.)
This questioning seriously misunderstands the nature of the DUP and its politics. Only a fortnight ago, Foster told her party conference the DUP would not back any plan from Brussels that might, in her mind, “decouple” Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
What is clear this evening is that the DUP in unison, and their old rival Lord Trimble (once the leader of the Ulster Unionists, now a Tory peer) regarded the deal as “minted” in Dublin exclusively.
There is no evidence of any divergence of opinion on the matter from within the DUP. They are united as are all strands of unionism tonight in opposition to the proposal.
Updated
Irish PM says May agreed a deal she could not subsequently deliver
The Varadkar press conference is over.
And here is the key lines.
- Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, accused Theresa May of approving a Brexit deal which she could not subsequently deliver. He strongly implied that the DUP was to blame for the setback, although he did not say that directly. The Express’s Nick Gutteridge has tweeted one of the best quotes.
Ouch! Varadkar: 'The responsibility of any prime minister is to ensure that they can follow through on agreements that they make and we are surprised and disappointed that they haven’t been able to.'
— Nick Gutteridge (@nick_gutteridge) December 4, 2017
- He said that he trusted May and thought she was negotiating in good faith.
- He said he thought there was still time to negotiate a deal.
- He said that, as far as his government was concerned, promising “regulatory alignment” between Northern Ireland and the EU, and no regulatory divergence, amounted to the same thing.
Q: Do you plan any talks with May on this?
Varadkar says he does not see any reason to change the text that was agreed.
Of course there will be ongoing contacts, he says.
Q: Would you be happy to see the text you agreed today changed?
Varadkar says the text was agreed this morning. He has not received any requests for changes that would change the meaning. He says his government was happy with “convergence”, “no divergence” or “regulatory alignment”.
He says Ireland wants to get on to the trade talks. It wants to sort out issues like aviation and security.
He repeats the point about being “disappointed and surprised” that the deal agreed this morning was rejected.
Q: Do you see this as a DUP problem, or a problem in the Conservative party?
Varadkar says it is not for him to comment on what is happening in other parties.
He was “disappointed” there was no deal today, he says.
But he is happy to allow the UK more time.
Q: What were you told about why the deal broke down?
Varadkar says it would not be helpful for him to ascribe blame.
But it became evident during May’s lunch with Juncker that the deal was breaking down.
It would not be helpful for him to blame anyone, he says.
Q: Do you think Arlene Foster had agreed to this wording, only for the “hard men” to lean on her and make her change her mind?
Varadkar says other parties can speak for themselves.
He says a majority of people in Northern Ireland voted remain. And a majority support the Good Friday agreement, which allows special treatment for Northern Ireland.
This is from 3NewsIreland’s Gavan Reilly.
Varadkar: The U.K. had agreed a text on the border that met our concerns ... I was then contacted by [Juncker and Tusk] and confirmed Ireland agreement to that text... I am surprised and disappointed that the U.K. Govt is not in a position to agree to what was approved today” 🔥
— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) December 4, 2017
Q: Did you believe the DUP were on side for a deal?
Varadkar says it was never his job to square the deal. He negotiated with the EU and London. He thought there was a deal.
He says he does believe May is negotiating in good faith. He trusts her. He thinks there is time to agree a deal.
Simon Coveney, the deputy prime minister, intervenes. He says these are structured negotiations. That is where the language came from. It did not come from talks with political parties on the phone.
So the deal had been done, he says.
Since then, there has been a request for more time.
Varadkar is now taking questions.
Q: Is there any difference between avoiding regulatory divergence and maintaing regulatory alignmement?
Varadkar says, as far as his government is concerned, they mean the same thing.
Q: Are the DUP blocking this?
Varadkar says it is up to May who she negotiates with.
He says that his government listens to the DUP. But it listens to other people too.
Leo Varadkar's statement
Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, is speaking now.
He says the border issue has been the most difficult. This is not a new problem, he says. He says it has always been crucial.
He says the Irish government has no hidden agenda. It just wants to protect the Good Friday agreement.
This morning, the Irish government was told the British government would agree a text acceptable to Ireland. He told Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk he backed the wording.
But then he found out that that was unacceptable to Theresa May.
He says he accepts May is acting in good faith.
He says Ireland remains opposed to anything that would lead to a hard border.
He says he has spoken to Juncker, who said the Ireland’s position was the EU’s position.
Updated
DUP MP Sammy Wilson implies any deal proposing 'regulatory alignment' would be unacceptable
In a BBC interview earlier, the DUP MP Sammy Wilson said that the language on regulatory divergence leaked to RTE this morning (see 11.44am) was language that the DUP had already rejected. He claimed the Irish government were trying to bounce London into the kind of deal they wanted.
He also implied that any deal proposing “regulatory alignment” would be unacceptable to the DUP. He said:
Regulatory alignment or regulatory convergence are simply EU-speak for keeping Northern Ireland within the bounds of the single market. As regulations change in the single market, we would have to change our regulations. So in effect part of the United Kingdom would be kept within the single market. And that would be devastating; leave aside the constitutional issue, that would be bad for Northern Ireland, given that our main market is not the Irish Republic. It is not even the whole of the EU. Our main market is the UK, and the integrity of the single UK market is far more important to us, to people who work in Northern Ireland, to firms that operate in Northern Ireland, than having some kind of regulatory convergence or continuance with the rest of Europe.
He criticised the government’s negotiating stance generally. Pointing out that London has already made concessions on the “Brexit bill”, he said:
And don’t forget, this is all before we have got one scrap of concession from the EU on a free trade arrangement. This is mad negotiating.
Updated
In the Commons, a Labour MP, Peter Kyle, used a point of order to ask about the Brexit talks. He said
This is a shambles that puts into perspective the constitutional settlement for our country here. Can we expect her [Theresa May] to make a statement tomorrow?
John Bercow, the Speaker, said he had been told May would be making a statement to the Commons about the deal this week and had expected it tomorrow.
(Now it will probably come later, once the deal has been finalised.)
Updated
My colleague Jessica Elgot was doorstepping the meeting where Gavin Barwell, the prime minister’s chief of staff, and Steve Baker, the Brexit minister, were briefing MPs on the UK-EU deal - what might have been the deal.
Outside the meeting of backbench MPs, @Anna_Soubry and Jacob @Jacob_Rees_Mogg agree on at least one thing - regulatory divergence for different parts of UK threatens the union. They have different solutions though...
— Jessica Elgot (@jessicaelgot) December 4, 2017
The taoiseach (Irish prime minister) and tanaiste (his deputy) are to make a statement at 5.15pm, almost three hours before they had expected to make “a positive statement to the country”.
This is from the BBC’s Adam Fleming.
Diplomats from the EU27 were sitting in a room for two hours waiting for the May/Juncker deal to emerge. They've all gone home now.
— Adam Fleming (@adamfleming) December 4, 2017
This, from the Financial Times’s Jim Pickard, provides some useful perspective on today’s events. It is worth pointing out too it won’t do Theresa May any harm either with her supporters to be seen to be holding up an agreement.
Someone who understands Northern Ireland told me yesterday that the choreography would have to involve a DUP outburst not least for the Taoiseach to tell Irish voters the deal is a good one.
— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) December 4, 2017
But feigned intransigence only works if it is plausible. Jean-Claude Juncker may have been laying it on just a little too thickly when he lauded Theresa May as a tough negotiator. (See 4.16pm.) For an alternative view as to how the government has handled the negotiation, this is what the former head of the Treasury, Nick Macpherson, tweeted last week, on the day it emerged that the UK would be paying around €50bn for the “Brexit bill”.
"This is not a negotiation. It is a drive-by shooting." Why do the wise words of Sir Fred Goodwin keep coming into my head?
— Nick Macpherson (@nickmacpherson2) November 29, 2017
It is being said the DUP scuppered today’s deal. This is from the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg.
Hearing it was the DUP call that sunk today's chances of a deal - Foster held her press conf, 20 mins later May leaves talks with Juncker to call her, goes back into the room and the deal is off
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
And this is from Sky’s Beth Rigby.
Govt source; “They were on board but the language was too strong for them”. Got Dublin over the line but not the DUP. For today at least https://t.co/fFEOhE3Sd9
— Beth Rigby (@BethRigby) December 4, 2017
Juncker says May is 'a tough negotiator, and not an easy one'
And here is the full text of what Jean-Claude Juncker said.
We had a friendly and constructive meeting today. It’s always a pleasure to meet Prime Minister May because our present relations is one of the most excellent which exists for the European Union.
But I have to say that she is a tough negotiator, and not an easy one. She’s defending the point of view of Britain with all the energy we know she has. And I’m doing the same on the side of the European Union.
Despite all our best efforts and the significant progress we and our teams have made over the past days on the remaining withdrawal issues, it was not possible to reach a complete agreement today.
We now have a common understanding on most relative issues – with just two or three open for discussion which require further consultation, further negotiation and further discussion.
We stand ready to resume the negotiations with the United Kingdom here in Brussels later this week. But I have to say that we were narrowing our positions to a huge extent extent today thanks to the British prime minister and thanks to the willingness of the European Commission to have a fair deal with Britain.
I’m still confident that we can reach sufficient progress before the European council on 15 December. This is not a failure, this is the start of the very last round. I am very confident that we will reach agreement in the course of this week.
Updated
Here is the BBC’s Katya Adler on the May/Juncker statements.
How would one describe that May/Juncker presser just now? Tight-lipped, awkwardly mutually complimentary, tellingly brief
— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) December 4, 2017
The pound fell in response to the news that there won’t be a deal today, the Wall Street Journal’s Georgi Kantchev reports.
A sterling story in two acts today - first rallying on "Brexit deal is close" reports, now tumbling on "No Brexit deal today" reports pic.twitter.com/GCj7taoJ1V
— Georgi Kantchev (@georgikantchev) December 4, 2017
May says 'differences remain' on two issues, but she is confident of reaching deal
Here are Theresa May’s words in full. She said:
As President Juncker has said, we have had a constructive meeting today. Both sides have been working hard in good faith. We’ve been negotiating hard, and a lot of progress has been made.
On many of the issues there is a common understanding. And it is clear, crucially, that we want to move forward together.
But on a couple of issues some differences do remain which require further negotiation and consultation and those will continue.
But we will reconvene before the end of the week and I am also confident that we will conclude this positively.
Updated
May says expects to meet Juncker again later this week
Theresa May is speaking now.
- May confirms that there is no deal today.
- She says there are two main issues outstanding.
- She says she expects to return to Brussels later this week.
Updated
Juncker says he and May have not reached deal today
Jean-Claude Juncker says he had a friendly and constructive meeting with Theresa May.
I have to say, she’s a tough negotiator, not an easy one.
May is defending the UK with all the energy she has, he says.
He says despite their best efforts, “it was not possible to reach a complete agreement today.”
- Juncker says he and May have not reached an agreement today.
- He says just two or three issues are still undecided.
- He says he is still “confident” there will be an agreement before the EU summit next week.
Updated
Deal concluding phase one of Brexit talks won't be agreed today, BBC reports
This is from the BBC’s Europe editor, Kaya Adler.
No deal today I’ve just been told #brexit
— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) December 4, 2017
Denis MacShane, the former Labour Europe minister, thinks that, in practice, the wording of the UK-EU deal would mean Northern Ireland staying in the single market and the customs union (despite what Rupert Harrison says - see 2.39pm).
If this is the text "The UK will ensure that there continues to be no divergence from those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North South cooperation and the protection of the Good Friday agreement" it means NI stays in CU, SM
— Denis MacShane (@DenisMacShane) December 4, 2017
Updated
This is from Sky’s Mark Stone.
The flags are up for a hastily arranged news conference in the EU Commission following the long @theresa_may @JunckerEU #Brexit lunch - @SkyNews pic.twitter.com/yIqPqGJYNd
— Mark Stone (@Stone_SkyNews) December 4, 2017
This is from Politico Europe’s Tom McTague.
Hearing May statement to camera in 10 mins. "It's on."
— Tom McTague (@TomMcTague) December 4, 2017
Scotland, Wales and London all unite in demanding same EU deal as Northern Ireland
Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, wants a slice of the Northern Ireland deal, too. Like Nicola Sturgeon (see 1.47pm) and Sadiq Khan (see 2.56pm), he is saying that if Northern Ireland gets a deal on regulatory alignment, Wales should get one. He posted this on Twitter.
We cannot allow different parts of the UK to be more favourably treated than others. If one part of the UK is granted continued participation in the Single Market & Customs Union, then we fully expect to be made the same offer.
— Carwyn Jones (@fmwales) December 4, 2017
Scotland and London are alike in both being pro-remain. (Scotland was 62% remain, and London 60% remain.) Wales voted 52.5% for leave although Jones, like Khan, is a Labour politician.
So we know have Scotland, Wales and London all asking for what has been offered to Northern Ireland.
(The alliance may revive the - only semi-frivolous - suggestion that the best solution for Brexit would be for England to leave the EU and the UK, leaving the rest of the UK, “rUK”, in the single market and the customs union.)
Updated
The Democratic Unionists believe that the early morning hype about an imminent deal between London and Dublin was “manufactured” by the Irish government.
Arlene Foster’s insistence that this Brexit arrangement “separates” Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK poses a major headache for Theresa May after she comes out of her lunch with EU leaders in Brussels.
DUP sources said they did not believe the draft posted by RTE earlier (see 11.44am) had been agreed by the British government. They said they suspected that the leak of the draft document was designed to “bounce” May and the British negotiators into a deal over the heads of the DUP.
The DUP are also confident that they have support among the Tory back benches to oppose any move by May and the government to accept this Brexit-Irish border blueprint, the sources said.
The party will block any moves akin to the leaked document from this morning, the DUP sources insisted.
They said the party would fight any move to switch the border into the Irish Sea and effectively “decouple” Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Updated
This is from Sky’s Ireland correspondent, David Blevins.
BREAK: Sky sources - the Prime Minister spoke to Arlene Foster by telephone within minutes of the @DUPleader's statement. If anyone thinks the C&S agreement is not an issue, think again. #Brexit
— David Blevins (@skydavidblevins) December 4, 2017
The Sunday Times’ Bojan Pancevski thinks commentators have overstated the extent to which London has conceded to Dublin and that in fact this UK-EU deal is a classic Brussels compromise.
Huge "if" rather. @theresa_may has *not* conceded that NI would remain in CU/SM. The "alignment" language is a classic #EU fudge. Compromise on both sides, but Ireland definitely climbed down from demanding hard guarantees. Only final #Brexit deal will spell it out - in 2019. https://t.co/JUOUS1cjZc
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) December 4, 2017
What happened was Ireland cleverly upping the ante last minute - to the surprise to most #EU players - and they now got a compromise that will rightfully be seen as a triumph. So much for UK pundits nonsense bout "young, inexperienced Taoiseach." But their led line became pink.
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) December 4, 2017
The original demand of "no divergence" for NI - which would arguably mean staying within the EU system - morphed into "alignment." The latter can mean all things to all people. That's how the EU works, and always narrowly avoids disasters.
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) December 4, 2017
Important: @eucopresident played a masterful role : his Dublin speech was wrongly seen as a blow to the UK position in Westminster lobby; in fact Tusk empowered Taoiseach @campaignforleo to enter a good compromise & be seen as coming out victorious. Tis how EU generates consensus
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) December 4, 2017
All in all, if today ends well (as it will) there's certainty of "sufficient progress" at next week's #EUCO. And then the hard part of #Brexit will begin: trade talks.
— Bojan Pancevski (@bopanc) December 4, 2017
Pancevski is referring to comments like this one, from the Irish deputy prime minister Simon Coveney, explicitly saying there must be no “regulatory divergence”. Coveney told the Today programme:
The area that we have focused in on is the need to give reassurance that there will not be regulatory divergence between the two jurisdictions on the island of Ireland. Because if there is, then it is very hard to avoid a checking system.
If you have different standards in terms of food safety, animal welfare, animal health, if you have different standards in relation medical devices and the approval of drugs and so on, how then can you maintain practical north/south cooperation as we have it today if that regulatory divergence appears after Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom leaves the European Union.
Updated
This is from Peter Ricketts, a former head of the Foreign Office.
If we concede “regulatory alignment” in Ireland, and there can be no border within the UK, then surely this dramatically curtails scope for UK free trade agreements with others like US? #Brexit https://t.co/LshaSID7j7
— Peter Ricketts (@LordRickettsP) December 4, 2017
Sadiq Khan says London should get same post-Brexit deal as Northern Ireland
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, is following events from India, where he is on a visit. Like Nicola Sturgeon (see 1.47pm), he is arguing that if Northern Ireland can get a deal that keeps it aligned to EU regulation, London should get one, too.
Huge ramifications for London if Theresa May has conceded that it's possible for part of the UK to remain within the single market & customs union after Brexit. Londoners overwhelmingly voted to remain in the EU and a similar deal here could protect tens of thousands of jobs.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) December 4, 2017
(Of course, as Rupert Harrison argues [see 2.39pm], regulatory alignment is not necessarily the same as staying in the single market. But it could be, and it may feel similar.)
Updated
This is from the Sun’s Tom Newton Dunn.
Deal trouble? Senior DUP source tells me NI-Eire regulatory alignment "doesn't have Arlene's approval". Adds: "So it's a no go. We leave on same terms".
— Tom Newton Dunn (@tnewtondunn) December 4, 2017
This is from INM’s Kevin Doyle.
I'm told An Taoiseach can't make his statement yet because he's waiting on a phonecall from Donald Tusk. But Tusk can't phone Varadkar because he waiting to hear from Jean Claude Juncker. #Brexit They need a WhatsApps group!
— Kevin Doyle (@KevDoyle_Indo) December 4, 2017
No 10 'cautious about deal being agreed today', BBC reports
The BBC says No 10 sources are now cautious about the prospect of a deal being agreed today. (Earlier David Davis, the Brexit secretary, said he hoped it would all get wrapped up today. See 11.09am.)
That might help to explain why Leo Varadkar has postponed his statement.
Leo Vardkar statement “postponed for now”. Press to be given new time as soon as possible. Not clear if it’s a hitch or because May and juncker are still at meeting
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) December 4, 2017
Rupert Harrison, who was George Osborne’s chief of staff when he was chancellor, has taken to Twitter to say that “regulatory alignment” is not the same as Northern Ireland staying in the single market.
To save a week of pointless commentary can we all agree that "regulatory alignment" in some key areas is not the same as staying in the single market or the customs union?
— Rupert Harrison (@rbrharrison) December 4, 2017
The fact that they are not the same thing is the WHOLE POINT of the wording
— Rupert Harrison (@rbrharrison) December 4, 2017
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, seized on the apparent deal [to keep Northern Ireland closely aligned to EU customs union and single market rules] as proof that her demands for a special deal for Scotland were realistic. She tweeted:
If one part of UK can retain regulatory alignment with EU and effectively stay in the single market (which is the right solution for Northern Ireland) there is surely no good practical reason why others can’t.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017
Her reaction underlines the Scottish government’s frustration that its requests to keep Scotland inside the single market, a stance backed by a majority of parties at Holyrood, has been dismissed as unworkable by UK ministers.
Sturgeon is closely watching developments with May’s talks on Monday in Brussels, her officials said, and she or her Brexit minister, Mike Russell, are likely to respond officially to the deal over the Irish border once there is confirmation about its terms.
Scotland voted heavily to remain in the EU in the 2016 referendum, yet is being taken out along with the rest of the UK, on terms negotiated by a Tory party with no direct mandate in Scotland.
Sturgeon has sought repeatedly to tie Brexit with her quest for Scottish independence from the UK, and she flagged that link again in a further tweet that applauded Ireland’s favourable deal on its border with Northern Ireland.
Right now, Ireland is powerfully demonstrating the importance of being independent when it comes to defending your vital national interests
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017
Updated
In a post on his Facebook page, ITV’s political editor Robert Peston says Theresa May is “taking the risk of her political life”. (He’s forgotten about about the election, obviously.) He writes:
Now it is with that very last concession that the PM is taking the political risk of her life, because in that concession she is in effect saying that a trade deal for the whole UK will also be based on a promise of close regulatory alignment between our country and the EU, in perpetuity.
That permanent regulatory convergence between the UK and EU is her preferred route, because without it her government would collapse: Northern Ireland’s DUP MPs, which are sustaining the Tories in office, have made it crystal clear that they will not accept a separate regulatory set-up for Northern Ireland from that prevailing in the UK as a whole.
But here is what I assume will be scaring the PM witless (it scares me, just as a bystander). She is signing up for close regulatory alignment between the UK and EU without ever having secured agreement for that from the cabinet.
And for Johnson, Gove and most of the other more ardent Brexiteers, in and out of the Cabinet, almost the whole point of leaving the EU was for the UK to “take back control” of setting rules and regulations for British businesses.
Peston also thinks there is a risk this could result in the UK leaving the EU with no deal, and a hard border going up in Ireland.
If her own cabinet and backbench colleagues end up vetoing that offer, even if it is accepted by Juncker at today’s lunch, that would see the UK having no trade deal with the EU and being forced to reintroduce a peace-disrupting hard border with the Republic.
But if the Irish Times is right, Peston is wrong on this last point. The Irish Times’s Fiach Kelly says their understanding is that the “regulatory alignment” promise covers a no deal Brexit too. Their story is here.
It is understood the deal guarantees regulatory alignment in all Brexit outcomes - including a "no deal" scenario. @IrishTimes
— Fiach Kelly (@fiachkelly) December 4, 2017
Updated
My colleague Henry McDonald describes Arlene Foster’s statement (see 2.14pm) as amounting to her throwing “a dose of cold water on the heated speculation over a proposed agreement”.
Arlene Foster's statement in full
Here is Arlene Foster’s statement in full. She did not take questions.
We have been very clear: Northern Ireland must leave the European Union on the same terms as the rest of the United Kingdom and we will not accept any form of regulatory divergence which separate Northern Ireland economically or politically from the rest of the UK. And the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom must not be compromised in any way.
And Her Majesty’s government understands the position of this party. The prime minister has told the House of Commons that there will be no border in the Irish Sea. And the prime minister has been clear that the UK is leaving the European Union as a whole, that the territorial and economic integrity of the United Kingdom will be protected.
For our part, of course, we do want to see a sensible Brexit, a Brexit where the common travel area is continued, where we meet our financial obligations, where we have a strict, time-limited implementation period, and where the contribution of EU migrants to our economy is recognised in a practical manner.
The Republic of Ireland government for their part claim to be guarantors of the Belfast agreement but they are clearly seeking to unilaterally change that Belfast agreement without out input or our consent. And of course we will not stand for that.
And here are the main points.
- Foster, the DUP leader, did not explicitly condemn the UK-EU border deal. She expressed reservations about it, but did not firmly condemn it.
- She said the DUP would not accept any “regulatory divergence” between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. This is awkward for Theresa May, because it implies the DUP want the ‘regulatory alignment with the EU after Brexit’ condition to apply to the whole of the UK - something which is unacceptable to Tory Brexiters.
- She accused the Irish government of trying to undermine the Good Friday agreement.
Updated
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, is speaking now.
She says the DUP would oppose anything that would lead to regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
She says the DUP wants to see a sensible Brexit.
The Irish government claim to be guarantors of the Belfast agreement. But they are seeking to unilaterally change it, she says. She says the DUP will not stand for that.
Updated
This, from the Telegraph’s Gordon Rayner, is helpful.
Timetable as it stands: 2pm Arlene Foster speaks, 2.30pm Leo Varadkar speaks, 3pm May meets Tusk, 4pm statement from May??? Also Sturgeon expected to make statement at some point.
— Gordon Rayner (@gordonrayner) December 4, 2017
Nigel Farage, the former Ukip leader, has posted this on Twitter about the UK-EU deal.
This UK Government’s bitter betrayal of 17.4 million people today is a concession too far, for it will lead to endless problems in Scotland and it damages the integrity of the United Kingdom.
— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 4, 2017
(Farage’s critics would doubtless argue that, if he was worried about the integrity of the UK, he should have not have been campaigning for Brexit in the first place.)
Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, will be speaking to journalists shortly.
DUP Leader Arlene Foster MLA will be speaking to press shortly in Parliament Buildings, Stormont. pic.twitter.com/20uE1MCNyO
— DUP (@duponline) December 4, 2017
Sturgeon says Scotland should get same post-Brexit assurance on EU regulation as Northern Ireland
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, says if Northern Ireland is allowed to maintain regulatory alignment with the EU, Scotland should be get this status too.
If one part of UK can retain regulatory alignment with EU and effectively stay in the single market (which is the right solution for Northern Ireland) there is surely no good practical reason why others can’t.
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017
We now seem to be in an odd position where Northern Ireland is getting a post-Brexit guarantee its lead political party does not want (see 1.13pm), while Scotland is being denied the same guarantee even thought its lead political party is in favour.
Experts in Belfast say the reported deal raises difficult questions about government in Northern Ireland.
“How do you define regulatory alignment? Who is going to oversee it? What kind of dispute resolution mechanism is there? Is this going to be the responsibility of the devolved government and, if there isn’t an assembly, is it the responsibility of London and Dublin?,” asked David Phinnemore, professor of European policy at Queen’s University.
Unlike countries in the European Economic Area, which automatically adopt European law, regulatory alignment suggested that a decision would have to be taken in the UK to make sure that parallel adoption of laws, he added.
Phinnemore said it was important to see the other wording in the 15-page document relating to non-trade issues and the 142 areas on North-South co-operation identified by Britain and the EU as being impacted by Brexit.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, said this morning that the UK and Irish governments would find a way to push ahead at this stage, saying a “fudge is doable this month with a bit of goodwill”. That could include wording around regulatory convergence that would be enough not to annoy the DUP. However, in the longer term he suggested there would still be key sticking points that would prevent frictionless trade and an invisible border.
“In the long run unless Northern Ireland stays in the EU’s customs union there will have to be border controls of some sort between north and south. Even if it does stay in the customs union, the need to police the single market may also require some controls,” Grant told the Guardian.
If the decision was taken for Northern Ireland to stay in the customs union, that would impact on future free trade agreements with third countries, such as the US, which would not apply in northern Ireland.
“In economic terms there would be quasi union of north and south,” he added - arguing that such an outcome could be difficult for the DUP to stomach.
However, Grant questioned if there could be an agricultural union under which the north and republic had a special deal relating to one sector, but not a full customs arrangement. That would diminish but not eliminate the need for border checks, he argued.
Coveney says Ireland has got reassurance 'there isn't going to be re-emergence of border'
This is what Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, told RTE a few minutes ago.
We hope to be in place in just over an hour’s time that the Taoiseach will be able to make a positive statement to the country.
Certainly the indications we have is that we are in a much better place than we have been in Brexit negotiations to date.
We have now a language that gives us the safeguards we need; that there is reassurance for people there is not going to be a re-emergence of a border.
Irish concerns are going to be addressed fully.
He also said he hoped the wording of the final agreement would be agreed “in the next hour”.
Asked about the opposition from the Democratic Unionist party, Coveney refused to be drawn. He said:
The relationship between the British government and the DUP is a matter for the British government and the DUP we have a responsibility to listen to the DUP and we have listened to the DUP but we have listened to others too.
Here is another quote from the DUP hardliner and party Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson. He told the Press Association:
I think that this is emanating from the Irish government, obviously, trying to push the UK government into a corner in the negotiations. It is not well thought through. I don’t think, given its promises, the British government could concede on this.
David Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist leader who was one of the architects of the Good Friday agreement and who is now a Conservative peer, has told the BBC that the deal on regulatory alignment sounds like “a thoroughly bad idea”.
Lord Trimble 'I'm scratching my head', but if details of what we expect are right, 'it's a thoroughly bad idea'
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
This is from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll. The Irish deputy PM is Simon Coveney.
BREAKING: Irish deputy PM effectively confirms deal done: "We hope to be in place in just over an hour's time that the Taoiseach will be able to make a positive statement to the country."
— lisa o'carroll (@lisaocarroll) December 4, 2017
DUP expresses doubts about Irish border deal
Democratic Unionist party sources described the latest proposal from Brussels on Brexit and the Irish border as ‘only a draft document’ which they stressed the British government has not accepted.
One senior DUP source described the document as an ‘Irish government inspired’ leak.
Although the party hierarchy are holding back from issuing a formal statement this lunchtime, at least about the draft, their outspoken East Antrim MP Sammy Wilson said that, if what was being reported about what was in the agreement turned out to be true, that would be unacceptable. He said:
The government have made it very clear and even today again, that there will no agreement made which would impact and create differences, not just on a constitutional basis but on an economic basis, that would make a difference between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. We will do nothing that would separate us from our main market which is the UK.
Wilson stressed he and the other nine DUP MPs “had the leverage” in parliament to hold the government to the agreement his party secured with the Tories after the June general election, which keeps Theresa May in 10 Downing Street.
Updated
According to Jack Maidment, Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP’s chief whip at Westminster, thinks the UK has not signed up to full regulatory alignment between Northern Ireland and the EU after Brexit.
Jeffrey Donaldson, DUP chief whip, tells me on suggestion UK has agreed there will be no regulatory divergence on island of Ireland on single market/customs union post-Brexit: "That is not our understanding of the UK Government's position."
— Jack Maidment (@jrmaidment) December 4, 2017
We have not seen the text yet, but the draft seen by RTE said the UK was agreeing to non-divergence, or alignment, only in so far as that was necessary to “support North South cooperation and the protection of the Good Friday agreement”. (See 11.44am.)
It does sound as if the spin that London will be putting on this agreement when the government explains it to the DUP will be rather different from the interpretation being put on it in Dublin.
It is understood Ireland sees the phrase ‘regulatory alignment’ as providing the highest degree of comfort to both sides allowing talks to be bounced to the next phase while at the same time giving room for manoeuvre for negotiations in the second phase.
According to sources, alternative terms considered were regulatory convergence and regulatory equivalence, a condition banks have been seeking post Brexit to allow them continue to sell into the single market.
Brian Lucey, professor of finance at the school of business, Trinity College Dublin, said:
I think alignment is the more ambiguous form of words that give wriggle room. There will always be subtle divergence between two jurisdictions and it is always up to two national governments to decide what they are.
For instance Ireland and Northern Ireland have different duties and VAT levels even though both are currently in the EU.
“The big question is that regulatory alignment has to imply a regulatory or customs barrier in the Irish sea unless the UK aligns itself too,” said Lucey.
This will not be acceptable to Brexiteers or the Democratic Unionist Party which has said this is tantamount to the break up of the United Kingdom.
Who knew Donald Tusk, president of the European council, was a Boomtown Rats fan?
Tell me why I like Mondays! Encouraged after my phone call with Taoiseach @campaignforleo on progress on #Brexit issue of Ireland. Getting closer to sufficient progress at December #EUCO.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) December 4, 2017
The BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg thinks it may be too late for Theresa May to refuse a deal now.
How can the PM not sign off the deal now with all these EU voices saying it's done just as she sits down to lunch with Juncker? https://t.co/6BIJGYPPIt
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
Ireland’s taoiseach Leo Varadkar has called a special meeting of all party leaders to update them on Brexit at lunchtime and will be making a statement at 2.30pm.
The government has not confirmed a deal has been sealed but sources are not denying reports from Brussels that agreement has been reached.
Deputy prime minister Simon Coveney is also expected to make a statement this afternoon.
One theory as to why the DUP has been hardening its line on Brexit in recent months is that it is under pressure from Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), a breakaway party set up in 2007 Jim Allister, a DUP MEP angry at the party’s decision to share power with Sinn Fein.
As Sky’s David Blevins reports, Allister has described “no regulatory convergence” as “a stepping stone to a United Ireland”.
TUV leader @JimAllister describes "no regulatory convergence" as "a stepping stone to a united Ireland" and "NI remaining in the EU." Big issues for the DUP today. #Brexit
— David Blevins (@skydavidblevins) December 4, 2017
The TUV vote in elections in Northern Ireland is minuscule, but it probably exerts more influence on DUP thinking than the raw numbers suggest.
The DUP MP Sammy Wilson is opposed to committing Northern Ireland to regulatory alignment with the Republic, according to the Detail’s Steven McCaffery.
The DUP's Sammy Wilson on @BBCTalkback comes out against regulatory alignment on island of Ireland in draft #Brexit deal and says it would be vetoed at Stormont (presumably by DUP), even though there is no Stormont. Declines to speculate on deal with UK Govt.
— Steven McCaffery (@SMcC_TheDetail) December 4, 2017
Just an arm from Juncker, and in they go for lunch pic.twitter.com/ahR6q4bVce
— Danny Kemp (@dannyctkemp) December 4, 2017
Theresa May has arrived in Brussels for her lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker.
PM has just arrived pic.twitter.com/Im2hdPdfZi
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
According to Sky’s Faisal Islam, the language in the draft text of the agreement seems to have switched from talking about avoiding regulatory divergence between the Republic and Northern Ireland (see 11.44am) to maintaining regulatory alignment.
This would bring it into line with the language proposed by the European parliament’s Brexit steering group (BSG) in their open letter to Michel Barnier last week. They said:
Concerning Ireland, the BSG believes that the UK must make a clear commitment, to be enshrined in a form which would guarantee its full implementation in the withdrawal agreement, that it would protect the operation of the Good Friday agreement in all its parts, ensure, by means of continued regulatory alignment between the North and the South, there is no hardening of the border on the island of Ireland and that there is no diminishing of the rights of people in Northern Ireland.
May and Juncker about to appear together - with a deal seeming to be on the table
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
And this is from the Times’ Sam Coates.
NEW: At 4pm Gavin Barwell and Steve Baker are going to address Tory MPs in a committee room about the EU negotiation. (I suspect the Speaker would prefer it was a statement to Parliament but hey)
— Sam Coates Times (@SamCoatesTimes) December 4, 2017
(There is still time for the Commons speaker to agree an urgent question.)
It looks as if Leo Varadkar, the Irish prime minister, is expecting a deal today. He has just tweeted these.
Cabinet met this morning. I will be making a statement on Phase I Brexit talks later today.
— Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) December 4, 2017
Also spoke to @JunckerEU and @eucopresident on the Phase I Brexit negotiations this morning.
— Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) December 4, 2017
And this is from the Irish Times’ Fiach Kelly.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has called other party leaders in for special meeting on Brexit meeting on 1.30pm. @IrishTimes
— Fiach Kelly (@fiachkelly) December 4, 2017
Here is the Irish journalist Peter Geoghegan on the UK’s concession on the Irish border.
Am wondering what is this difference between 'alignment' and 'no divergence'? Owen Paterson said this morning there will be regulatory divergence - in which case #irishborder issue recurs again. https://t.co/DG5ZHzPxMV
— Peter Geoghegan (@PeterKGeoghegan) December 4, 2017
But if the DUP - and Liam Fox et al - can sign up for this then begs question what May has told them privately. Can't have border in Ireland, no difference between NI and GB and free trade deals w/the world. Logical impossibility
— Peter Geoghegan (@PeterKGeoghegan) December 4, 2017
The language on alignment on Irish border that seems to be being presented as a concession won by May, echoes that of Guy Verhofstadt. Not sure if this even counts as a fudge. https://t.co/Aq6xWKBwVZ
— Peter Geoghegan (@PeterKGeoghegan) December 4, 2017
This is from the Telegraph’s Peter Foster.
A new game of #Brexit semantics begins:
— Peter Foster (@pmdfoster) December 4, 2017
Question. What is the difference between "continued regulatory alignment" and "no regulatory divergence"
h/t @tconnellyRTE
Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland’s first minister, is cheering Ireland on from the sidelines.
Right now, Ireland is powerfully demonstrating the importance of being independent when it comes to defending your vital national interests
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) December 4, 2017
At the regular morning Number 10 lobby briefing Theresa May’s official spokesman insisted there will be no difference in the Brexit arrangements for Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
“The PM has been clear that the UK is leaving the EU as a whole, and the territorial and economic integrity of the UK will be protected,” he said, refusing to elaborate further on what that means.
He would not comment on the RTE story reporting that the UK would commit to no regulatory divergence on the island of Ireland (see 11.44am), but sought to undermine the broadcaster’s credibility, saying: “RTE was reporting this morning that we were holding a cabinet meeting and I missed that if it occurred.”
Here is some more on the deal.
This is from Sky’s Faisal Islam.
https://twitter.com/faisalislam/status/937645701177192448
Lamberts Belgian Green MEP says it is a 15 page joint declaration ... on financial settlement “we are there” on citizens rights “fine tuning” required and Ireland is down to Dublin
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Phillipe Lamberts MEP tells me that the draft text on Ireland agrees “full alignment” within N. Ireland on those parts of single market and customs union that might otherwise lead to hard border...
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
I said that sounds a lot like NI staying in the Customs Union and Single Market - Lamberts, who has seen the text, agreed but said it was up to UK government how this is described....
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Over to the DUP.
Also - if N. Ireland gets this, Nigel Dodds said to me on Thursday that Scotland will ask for the same deal
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
So the draft text has been changed from talking about avoiding regulatory divergence, to agreeing full regulatory alignment on those parts of CU/ SM which might lead to hard border... sounds the same.
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
UK offers EU assurance over Ireland border about no regulatory divergence
The British have conceded on the Irish border, a senior MEP has said following a meeting with Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator. Philippe Lamberts, the leader of the Green group in the European parliament, was speaking after the meeting, where leading MEPs were shown a 15-page joint statement reflecting what has been agreed. Paragraph 10 says the UK will commit to regulatory alignment between the Republic and Northern Ireland whatever happens in future trade talks.
“I was surprised they agreed,” said Lamberts.
Updated
This is from RTE’s Tony Connelly.
BREAKING: UK will concede that there will be no "regulatory divergence" on the island of Ireland on the single market and customs union, acc to a draft text seen by @rtenews
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) December 4, 2017
Here is the RTE story in full. And here is an extract.
The UK has conceded to EU negotiators that there will be no divergence of the rules covering the EU single market and customs union on the island of Ireland post Brexit, according to a draft negotiating text seen by RTÉ News.
The concession, if accepted by the Irish Government, would have far reaching implications for how closely Northern Ireland remains bound to EU structures.
But it remains an open question if the final text will be agreeable to both the Irish and British governments.
And the story includes this quote from the draft negotiating text.
In the absence of agreed solutions the UK will ensure that there continues to be no divergence from those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North South cooperation and the protection of the Good Friday agreement.
The Irish government has been repeatedly demanding an assurance from the UK that after Brexit there will be no regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland and the EU. That would enable the authorities on both sides to keep the border soft. In an interview on Friday Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, said it was important that the “no divergence” pledge applied not just to agriculture but to areas such as health too. He said:
If you have different standards in terms of food safety, animal welfare, animal health,” he said, “if you have different standards in relation to medical devices and the approval of drugs and so on, how then can you maintain practical north-south cooperation as we have it today if that regulatory divergence appears after Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom leaves the European Union?
It is not clear whether “no divergence from those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North South cooperation and the protection of the Good Friday agreement”, the words in the draft text, is the same as no divergence generally.
Presumably the UK government will argue there is a difference. Because if the UK were to accept no regulatory divergence at all between Northern Ireland and the EU after Brexit, and given what it has said about maintaining the integrity of the UK, it would effectively be conceding that the UK will maintain regulatory equivalence with the EU after Brexit - something totally unacceptable to hardcore Brexiters.
Updated
Here is a picture of Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, meeting Guy Verhofstadt and other MEPs from the European parliament’s Brexit steering group this morning.
According to Sky’s Faisal Islam, Verhofstadt said the chances of a deal were “50/50”.
Verhofstadt leasays there is “no deal” as of now, it is “50:50” whether there could be one today... says money is done but has concerns on citizens rights
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Afterwards Verhofstadt said MEPs were particularly concerned to ensure that the process for EU nationals who want to stay in the UK after Brexit isn’t burdensome.
During my meeting with @JunckerEU, I reiterated that EU citizens in the UK should not have to go through an unclear, costly and burdensome procedure. Their rights must be guaranteed. They came to the UK in good faith and must be treated with the respect they deserve. pic.twitter.com/oY9nlAHwkF
— Guy Verhofstadt (@guyverhofstadt) December 4, 2017
Donald Tusk, the European council president, has cancelled a trip to the Middle East in the middle of the week so he can be around for more Brexit talks. As the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg reports, that does not necessarily tell us much at all.
You could read this either way - good sign because he thinks they'll be busy drafting guidelines for ambassadors to sign off on Wednesday, or grim because they're miles away from agreement https://t.co/a47gb7EFoC
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
David Davis says UK hopes to get deal today
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has said that he hopes the EU will agree today that that trade talks can start after December. In a clip for broadcasters before he boarded the plane for Brussels, he said:
We’ve put seven months of work, both sides, into getting to this point and we are hoping that Mr Juncker today will give us sufficient progress so that we can move on to the trade talks. The decision, of course, won’t be taken until 15 December but that’s what we are hoping for, because trade talks are of enormous importance to the United Kingdom and to Europe.
Davis sounds a bit more upbeat that Number 10 did last night, when it issued this statement implying that talks could drag on a little longer. The one-sentence quote from a spokesman said:
With plenty of discussions still to go, Monday will be an important staging post on the road to the crucial December council.
Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, also told RTE this morning that Ireland’s concerns about the border are shared by the Commons Brexit committee.
.@simoncoveney says Irish concerns are echoed by a majority on the House of Commons Exiting the EU Committee (which said last week that avoiding a hard border was not compatible with leaving the customs union and single market).
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) December 4, 2017
Coveney is right. Here is the committee’s report. And this is what it said about the UK’s proposals for Ireland/Northern Ireland border.
We welcome the government’s commitment to “no physical infrastructure” at the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. We also welcome its rejection of a customs border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. We do not currently see how it will be possible to reconcile there being no border with the government’s policy of leaving the single market and the customs union, which will inevitably make the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland the EU’s customs border with the UK; i.e. including the land border in Northern Ireland and at the ports of Holyhead, Milford Haven and Fishguard that provide freight services to and from the Republic of Ireland. It will be made harder by the fact that the government’s proposals, by its own admission, are untested and to some extent speculative. We call upon the government to set out in more detail how a “frictionless” border can in practice be maintained with the UK outside the single market and the customs union.
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Paterson plays down prospect of Tory Brexiters rebelling if May ignores their 'red lines'
Yesterday Conservative Brexiters started issuing a new clutch of “red lines” for Theresa May ahead of today’s talks. Leave Means Leave published an open letter to May with seven demands, and Iain Duncan Smith wrote an article for the Sunday Telegraph making similar arguments.
Does this amount to a serious threat to the prime minister if she makes too many compromises? Or are the Brexiters just sounding belligerent in the hope of somehow boosting May’s position in the talks? (The theory being that, by sounding off in the Telegraph, they enable her to to Brussels saying, ‘You must give me what I want because otherwise my backbenchers will go beserk.’)
It is hard to be sure quite what their motives are, but on the Today programme this morning Owen Paterson, the former environment secretary and one of the signatories of the Leave Means Leave letter, implied that he was more interested in helping May than constraining her. He said that he was “emphatically behind the prime minister” and, when asked if he would vote against the government if it breached the Leave Means Leave “red lines”, he replied:
No, no, no, no. What we’re talking about is making it very clear to those with whom she will be meeting today for lunch and negotiating with next week that they have been dragging their feet on the issue of the end economic relationship.
In his interview Paterson also insisted that the Irish border could remain “soft” by ensuring customs checks are done at the point of shipment, while technology tracks goods crossing the frontier. He told the programme:
The fact is we have incredibly close relations with the Republic of Ireland, this trade is generally small, as I have just said it’s regular, and it can be handled with modern communication techniques, electronic invoicing etc.
As RTE’s Tony Connolly reports, Simon Coveney, the Irish deputy prime minister, subsequently said Paterson was wrong about the volume of north/south trade being small.
.@simoncoveney says what Owen Patterson said on negligible trade between north and south “not correct”. Says there is €2bn in trade, 5,000 SMEs trade across the border.
— Tony Connelly (@tconnellyRTE) December 4, 2017
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Here is David Davis, the Brexit secretary, leaving his office this morning for his trip to Brussels. He is accompanying the prime minister.
Here is the Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar arriving at government buildings in Dublin before this morning’s Irish government cabinet meeting.
(I presume he changed before it started.)
Faisal Islam, Sky’s political editor, is also picking up negative vibes from Brussels.
I hear now that there is a text, but it is not an agreed joint text, from both sides. EU source: “a number of unresolved issues, not just Irish, (ECJ etc)”.
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Discussions continue here in Brussels this morning between UK & EU negotiators, I’m told. Weber’s message that the Parliament unhappy re citizens rights significant. Barnier/Juncker meet them in an hour or so.
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
This is cutting it fine.
This is a reference to the Manfred Weber tweets I posted earlier. See 9.19am.
Here is Irish FM/DPM @simoncoveney confirming to @RTEnews that there is a text on “which we don't yet have agreement on" and that talks is “a sensitive place right now” pic.twitter.com/NYX4dJk5iU
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Ahead of Barnier consultation with European Parliament, source here in Brussels: “Ireland completely blocked - no progress”
— Faisal Islam (@faisalislam) December 4, 2017
Donald Tusk, the European council president, is meeting Theresa May at 4pm Brussels time (3pm UK time), AFP’s Danny Kemp reports.
EU's Tusk meeting May (for post-lunch coffee, or is that teatime?) at 4pm Brussels time pic.twitter.com/R1mgqF2a4e
— Danny Kemp (@dannyctkemp) December 4, 2017
The Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar has tweeted about the special Irish government cabinet meeting.
Holding a special Cabinet meeting this morning where @simoncoveney @HMcEntee and I will update Government ministers on the #Brexit talks. In a crucial phase of the negotiations.
— Leo Varadkar (@campaignforleo) December 4, 2017
The BBC’s political editor Laura Kuenssberg is picking up a sense that we might not get a Brexit deal today after all.
1.Agreement today all starting to feel a bit shaky and downside of a delay is much bigger for UK than EU but there is a real problem for the UK in being much more specific on Ireland at this stage
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
2. Significant UK talking about today being a 'staging post' - downplaying its significant but they would never have planned for PM to come today unless they'd believed a good chance of something decent to take home
— Laura Kuenssberg (@bbclaurak) December 4, 2017
Met commissioner says former officer was wrong to reveal details of pornography on Damian Green's computer
Turning away from Brexit for a moment, Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan police commissioner, was on LBC this morning talking about Neil Lewis, the former Met officer who gave an interview to the BBC last week talking about the (legal) pornography found on Damian Green’s Commons computer during a police raid in 2009. Dick said Lewis was wrong to reveal confidential information of this kind. She told LBC:
Police officers have a duty of confidentiality. We come into contact with personal information very regularly, sometimes extremely sensitive. This is a daily occurrence for any officer. We all know that we have a duty to protect that information and to keep it confidential. In my view, that duty endures. It endures after you leave the service, so I believe that what this officer and, indeed, other retired officers, appears to have done is wrong and my professional standards department will be reviewing what has happened in relation to how information has been handled and if any offences are disclosed, we will investigate them.
Asked if it was possible Lewis could be prosecuted, she replied:
Undoubtedly, if offences have been disclosed and that can be proved, it would be a matter for the Crown Prosecution Service, but there could be a prosecution. I’ve said before I don’t want to give a running commentary on this matter. It’s clearly sensitive, it’s controversial and there is a Cabinet Office inquiry running in parallel, as you know, but today I think it is appropriate that I say that what they appear to have done seems to me to be quite wrong.
Helen McEntee, Ireland’s Europe minister, told the Today programme this morning that progress has been made on the Irish border issue over the weekend but that the Irish government still does not have a final text it can approve, my colleagues Peter Walker and Lisa O’Carroll report.
Asked if she thought Ireland and the UK were close to a breakthrough, McEntee told Today:
No, I do not believe we are. However, I do think that we have made quite a lot of work, or progress, over the weekend.
It is absolutely impossible for us to allow the negotiations to move on to phase two when we don’t have an absolute, concrete commitment from the UK government that we will not have a hard border on the island of Ireland.
I do believe that we are nearing closer progress, and the sufficient progress. We are not there yet, and that is why we are meeting as a cabinet this morning to look at where we are - to assess exactly where we are, to look at what has been presented, and to see what we need to do to move forward.
If there is not enough that has been given to us in written form ... it is up to the UK government to produce that, to provide that.
And, obviously, as a government we will assess it. I think we all want to hope that we can move on to phase two as quickly as possible, and particularly in time for December council on the 14th of December.
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Theresa May heads to Brussels hoping to conclude phase one of Brexit talks
Are you fed up of reading about the interminable Brexit talks? If so, some partial good news. Today could be the day when phase one finally concludes.
Theresa May is going to Brussels for a key lunch with Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the European commission, and both sides want to reach an agreement on the three issues on the table in phase one - citizens’ rights, the financial settlement and the Irish border - that will qualify as “sufficient progress” and trigger a move to phase two.
You may have assumed that the deadline for a decision was the December EU summit starting on Thursday next week. That is where EU leaders are due to take the final decision about moving the Brexit talks to phase two, where the UK and the EU will discuss a transition deal and the future trade relationship. But Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, and the European commission will have to take a decision this week about whether the “sufficient progress” criteria have been met and so in practice today, or at least early this week, has become the deadline for the UK to finalise what its offer is on the three phase one issues.
The hope is to set out what has been agreed in a statement that will be published. This could come later today, if all goes well, allowing May to make a statement about it in the Commons tomorrow. All sides seem reasonably optimistic that there will be a deal, but by 9am this morning it still had not been bolted down and it is quite possible that there could be a delay.
As usual when talks like this are going to the wire, those close to the process start giving out quite contradictory messages - at once talking up the prospects of a deal, and highlighting how it could all go wrong.
The key problem is London’s failure (so far) to give Ireland the firm assurance it wants that Brexit will not lead to the return of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic and in Dublin this morning, where the Irish cabinet is meeting, Simon Coveney, the deputy prime minister and foreign minister, said there was still no deal on this issue. “We are not quite yet where we want to be, but it is possible to do that [agree] today,” he told RTE’s Morning Ireland.
In a Twitter thread last night Katya Adler, the BBC’s Europe editor, said the mood was positive. Here is how the thread starts.
Brussels in positive mood tonight ahead of PM’s lunch w JC Juncker here tomorrow #brexit (1)
— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) December 3, 2017
And here is how it ends.
EU source says:Despite cacophony of those in UK who want to scupper #Brexit talks, PM May and Brussels working on and nearing solutions (15)
— katya adler (@BBCkatyaadler) December 3, 2017
But this morning Manfred Weber, leader of the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) group in the European parliament, has been stressing that some problems remain.
In #Brexit negotiations, money is one of the problems, but it is not the biggest one. We are much more concerned about the fact that negotiations are stalled on the protection of EU citizens’ rights & on the Irish case. 1/2
— Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) December 4, 2017
We will not change our red lines. The lives of millions of families are at stake. If no clear commitment is made, the @EPPGroup will not be ready to assess the progress made as sufficient to enter a 2nd phase of negotiations. #Brexit 2/2
— Manfred Weber (@ManfredWeber) December 4, 2017
The European parliament is not the lead player in this saga, but it is influential, and will have to approve any final Brexit deal.
On the subject of which, if May does wrap up phase one of the Brexit talks today, all that means is that the focus then moves on to phase two - which promises to be even more complicated. I’m afraid the interminable Brexit process will go on. But May will at least have achieved something concrete before Christmas.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: The Irish cabinet meets to discuss Brexit, the border issue and what the UK is offering.
9.30am: Boris Johnson, the foreign secretary, meets his Norwegian opposite number, Ine Eriksen Søreide, in London.
10am: Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, meet the European parliament’s Brexit steering group.
12.15pm: May and Juncker meet for lunch.
Afternoon: May meets Donald Tusk, the European council president.
3.30pm: MPs begin day four of the EU withdrawal bill’s committee stage debate. They will debate amendments relating to devolution, and the votes will come at 11.30pm or later.
As usual, I will be covering breaking political news as it happens, as well as bringing you the best reaction, comment and analysis from the web. I plan to post a summary at lunchtime and another in the afternoon.
You can read all today’s Guardian politics stories here.
Here is the Politico Europe round-up of this morning’s political news from Jack Blanchard’s Playbook. Here is the ConservativeHome round-up of today’s political stories. And here is the PoliticsHome list of today’ top 10 must reads.
If you want to follow me or contact me on Twitter, I’m on @AndrewSparrow.
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