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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Politics
Andrew Sparrow

Arlene Foster says draft of UK-EU Brexit deal came as 'big shock' to DUP – as it happened

DUP leader Arlene Foster
DUP leader Arlene Foster Photograph: Paul Faith/AFP/Getty Images

Afternoon summary

  • David Davis has claimed that “regulatory alignment” with the EU is what the government wants for the whole of the UK after Brexit. (See 3.07pm.) He said this was not the same as regulatory convergence, or staying in the single market, and it was not clear from his comments in the Commons whether this means the government is taking a new position on the (as yet unresolved) matter of whether it wants to stick quite closely to the European regulatory model after Brexit. But his words did imply that the government is keen to play down the suggestion that Northern Ireland will be different from the rest of the UK after Brexit. Davis said “regulatory alignment” was something for the whole of the UK. But he did not address one of the specific problems with the draft text of the Brexit deal released yesterday; that, in the event of there being “no deal”, it would commit Northern Ireland to shadowing EU regulation while leaving the rest of the UK to go its own way. (See 2.26pm.)
  • Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has said that the DUP spent five weeks trying to get hold of a draft text of the UK-EU Brexit deal and that, when it finally saw it yesterday, it was “a big shock”. (See 5.17pm.) She told RTE:

When we looked at the wording [on regulatory alignment]and had seen the import of all that we knew we couldn’t sign up to anything that was in that text that would allow a border to develop in the Irish Sea.

And, in a separate interview with Sky, when it was put to her that the Irish government has said it will not budge on the substance of this point, she replied:

The Irish prime minister can be as unequivocal as he likes. We’re also unequivocal in relation to these matters.

The Telegraph’s Gordon Rayner says a telephone call between Foster and Theresa May planned for tonight may not take place.

  • David Gauke, the work and pensions secretary, has said the government will release a set of reports on the operation of universal credit to a Commons select committee. He was speaking after Labour arranged for MPs to debate a motion this afernoon saying the papers must be published. If the government had tried opposing the motion, it faced defeat.

That’s all from me for today.

Thanks for the comments.

Updated

Ruth Davidson’s demands that any special deal with the EU for Northern Ireland should be extended across the UK has been unanimously endorsed by the Scottish Conservatives’ 13 MPs at Westminster, the party has said.

The Scottish Tory group, which jumped from one solitary MP to 13 after June’s snap election, includes Eurosceptic MPs known to have voted leave, in Ross Thomson and Alister Jack, but also David Mundell, the Scottish secretary, who backed the group stance. In a statement, the party said:

The Scottish Conservative group met today and unanimously agreed that we fully support the comments from Ruth Davidson MSP that the terms of any Brexit deal with the EU should be UK-wide.

Their statement came after David Davis, the Brexit secretary, had told the Commons that any “regulatory alignment” with the single market to help keep the Irish border open would be UK-wide, reducing its immediate significance.

But it suggests Davis and Number 10 have faced wider pressure from within the party to scrap yesterday’s mooted deal with the EU and Ireland to make the offer apply solely to Northern Ireland.

It is understood that Mundell had earlier endorsed Davidson’s blunt warning on Tuesday morning that nothing could happen to undermine the UK’s internal market and constitutional balance in this morning’s UK cabinet meeting.

Foster says draft of UK-EU Brexit deal came as 'big shock' to DUP

The DUP leader Arlene Foster has said the text of the Irish border deal came as a “big shock” when she saw it yesterday.

In an interview with RTE News about to be broadcast she said her party only saw the text late yesterday morning as British and Irish officials were tying up loose ends ahead of Theresa May’s lunch meeting with Jean Claude Juncker.

“Once we saw the text, we knew it was not going to be acceptable,” she told RTE’s Northern Ireland correspondent Tommy Gorman.

She told him the DUP had been asking for the text for five weeks.

She also said she had a very open conversation with May after the DUP press conference in which she said they could sign not up to anything that would mean a border in the Irish sea.

She told her “it could have been dealt with differently”.

Foster said she had been told by British negotiators that the Irish government did not want her to see the text ahead of yesterday’s crunch meeting in Brussels.

“We are told that the Irish government prevented it coming to us.

Gorman asked: “Who told you that?”

She replied: “The British negotiating team”.

UPDATE: Here is more from the interview.

Foster indicated she wanted the detailed negotiations relating to the future governance of the Irish border removed from the negotiating document and revealed that there had been “no contact” with Dublin over the text.

She also attacked the “aggressive” campaign by the Irish government on Brexit and said unionists were spooked after the tanaiste Simon Coveney told a Dail committee that one of his aspirations was united Ireland in his political lifetime.

This thesis was rejected by the deputy prime minister Coveney last Friday when he said it was difficult not to get drawn into identity politics when discussing northern Ireland but it was not an “green vs orange” issue.

“I think the Irish government have insisted on a lot of detail in relation to the border – they don’t need to have detail to move on to phase two, so they can talk about trade, they have listened to the UK government and indeed ourselves around the fact we don’t want a hard border,” Foster told RTE. She went on:

We want to move forward together, but instead of accepting that as bona fides, they have decided they want a lot more detail and they are pushing at an agenda which leads a lot of unionists that there is something else.

I think it has been very clear that there has been a very aggressive agenda coming from Dublin recently.

I regret that of course, when Simon Coveney went to the Dail committee and talked about his aspiration for a united Ireland in his political lifetime, I think a lot of people noted that and then noted his stance in relation to the border.

People have jumped to conclusions. I don’t know whether those conclusions are right or wrong we will have to see in the future if that is the case.

Nobody wants to see a hard border, but the reality is there is a border. It’s there because we are two different jurisdictions and people need to be reminded of that sometime.

I’ve seen some commentary about how awful it is that the DUP are trying to cut off north-south trade, nothing could be further from the truth.

We want north -outh trade to continue, but we fundamentally want east-west trade to continue as well because – and the two aren’t mutually exclusive, but they have been presented as thus in this document and that’s not something we can support.

Updated

Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, has told the BBC that he expects to meet Theresa May tomorrow or on Thursday to conclude the Brexit deal, but not on Friday or Saturday, Natalie Higgins reports.

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, has also been giving an interview to RTE, my colleague Lisa O’Carroll reports.

This is from Sky’s David Blevins.

This is from my colleague Jessica Elgot.

Scotland’s 13 Conservative MPs have backed Ruth Davidson’s comments about how any regulatory alignment deal for Northern Ireland should apply to the whole of the UK. (See 10.08pm.) This is from the BBC’s Nick Eardley.

MPs are debating universal credit at the moment. As the Press Association reports, the Conservative MP Heidi Allen was left in tears after hearing the “destitution” faced by people as a result of government welfare reforms. Allen struggled to speak following a speech by the Labour MP Frank Field, in which he described persuading a man not to commit suicide and how an organisation separately helped a child “crying through hunger”. Field, chairman of the Commons work and pensions committee, said the father of the child also said he had had a “lucky week” after neighbours invited him to a funeral “so they could finish off the food” once the other guests had been fed.

Rising to speak after Field, Allen said:

I don’t know where to start after that. I’m humbled by the words from my honourable, good friend from Birkenhead. No government is perfect, no benefits system is perfect, no debate, no motion is perfect, but by God we work together and make this better.

Intervening to give Allen a chance to compose herself, Field said:

I’m just amazed for the first time I’ve been able to report those events publicly without weeping. I’m so affected by them, I’m affected as she is. That’s the debate we’re really having - how do we represent here the desperateness of many of our constituents when many of us feel we can’t offer them hope.

These are from Sam McBride, from the News Letter in Belfast.

RTE’s Europe editor Tony Connelly has hit back at reports in the UK that his report of a leaked draft and amended document was part of “Irish propaganda” and unintentionally led to the collapse of talks.

He said “RTE protects its sources” but he was able to confirm the leak did not come from the Irish government. He also pointed out he reported the leak at 11.15am, 15 minutes after Jean Claude Juncker confirmed to Leo Varadkar that the British had agreed the final wording.

Varadkar gives Irish parliament more details of proposed UK-EU Brexit deal

The Irish prime minister has said he believes there is plenty of time to salvage the Irish border Brexit deal, scuppered by the DUP before it was inked.

Speaking for the second time since talks collapsed Leo Varadkar revealed that the controversial wording for the proposal to have “regulatory alignment” between Northern Ireland and the EU post Brexit was British negotiator’s preferred option, not Ireland’s.

“There was an exchange of texts – one being regulatory divergence and no regulatory alignment.

“We satisfied ourselves on Sunday night that we could accept either of those two lines and ‘regulatory alignment’ was what was accepted by British advisers on Monday morning,” he told the Irish parliament during leader’s questions.

In the most detailed official account yet of the contents of the 15-page proposal, Varadkar revealed it provided for three potential outcomes in a final deal.

1) “UK free trade agreement that would allow free trade to continue not just north and south but between Britain and Ireland.”

2) “a bespoke arrangement involving technology and others things.”

3) if neither of this were agreed in the final Brexit deal there would be “ongoing regulatory alignment between north and south” which would have been “a back stop if all else failed”.

Varadkar told the Dail that “ball is now in London’s court” and he “very much regretted” that it was not possible to conclude matters yesterday.

But he said he was optimistic a deal could still be sealed as the EU council did not meet until 14 December, giving Theresa May enough time to square the proposal with the DUP.

Leo Varadkar.
Leo Varadkar. Photograph: Widak/Sipa USA/REX/Shutterstock

The Irish Ambassador to London called for the Democratic Unionists to step back and reflect calmly at the proposal to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland post-Brexit, blaming garbled leaks for leading the DUP to reject a document the Irish government thought the Unionists had accepted.

Speaking at the Institute for Government in London, Adrian O’Neill also warned an agreement would have to be hammered out by the end of this week to be ready in time for the EU heads of government summit planned for next week. The summit has been slated to give the go ahead to the start of a second phase of Brexit talks focused on the UK’s future trading relationship with the EU.

Urging the DUP to stay calm, he said:

There are sometimes days like yesterday when something is about to happen, garbled versions get leaked in the media, people adopt robust positions, everyone gets very worked up, and sometimes it gets very difficult to de-escalate that in a couple of hours, and get people back into deal making.

Sometimes what is needed for everyone to step back and to calmly think about it and to focus on the totality of the package on the table. Our hope is that is possible and the British government and the DUP are able to re-engage, and look at this afresh.

He urged the DUP through “calm reflection to look at the document holistically”.

He insisted the document contained a range of reassurances for unionists, including a recognition that the future constitutional status of Northern Ireland can only be altered by the provisions of the Good Friday agreement . The agreement prevents the unification of the island without referenda on both sides of the border.

He did not deny specifically that the Irish government had been responsible for the leak in Brussels that so upset the DUP, saying instead it is never wise to make assumptions about the sources of leaks.

And he indicated that aspects of the agreement for Ireland would not be settled until the second stage of the talks.

There was a clear commitment to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland, but he said the leaked passage in the document about preventing regulatory divergence was a backstop, and alternative routes to securing this goal that were closer to the UK government positions had also been set out as alternatives in the document.

Updated

The Labour party has issued a statement clarifying its position on the single market and the customs union in the light of Sir Keir Starmer’s comments (see 3.07pm), the Mirror’s Dan Bloom reports.

This implies that staying in the customs union for good is an option that the party would consider, but that it would only stay a member of the single market if single market rules were amended.

David Davis's Commons Brexit statement - Summary and analysis

Here are the main points from the David Davis’s urgent question about the Brexit talks.

  • Davis, the Brexit secretary, said that “regulatory alignment” with the EU is what the government wanted for the whole of the UK after Brexit. This was not the same as regulatory convergence, or harmonisation, he claimed. And he made the point repeatedly to counter claims that the UK wanted an outcome that would separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. (See 2.26pm for more, including an explanation about how what is proposed for Northern Ireland does seem to be different.) In response to a question from Labour’s Yvette Cooper, Davis said that what he was saying was just what Theresa May said in her Florence speech. He told her:

[May] made a very plain case for the sorts of divergence that we would see after we left. And she made the case that there are areas where we want the same outcome, but by different regulatory methods. We want to maintain safety, we want to maintain food standards, we want to maintain animal welfare, we want to maintain employment rights. We don’t have to do that by exactly the same mechanism as everybody else. That’s what regulatory alignment means.

Adam Lent, director of the New Local Government Network, has a good follow up.

  • Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, urged the government to put staying in the customs union and the single market for good back on the table as negotiating options. He said:

So the question for the government today is this: will the prime minister now rethink her reckless red lines and put options such as a customs union and single market back on the table for negotiation? Because if the price of the prime minister’s approach is the break-up of the union and reopening of bitter divides in Northern Ireland then the price is too high.

In a speech in April during the election campaign Starmer suggested the UK would definitely leave the single market under Labour (he said staying in was incompatible with curbing freedom of movement). But during the summer Labour announced it would stay in the single market and the customs union during the transition (a policy subsequently adopted by the government).

After the UQ Ben Bradshaw, the pro-European Labour MP, put out this statement on behalf of Open Britain, which is campaigning for a soft Brexit. He said:

Today’s shift by the Labour frontbench, and its call for the single market and customs union to be put back on the table by the Government, is extremely welcome.

Nearly every Labour MP who spoke in today’s urgent question called for the UK to stay in the single market and customs union. The Labour party is increasingly united around this position.

  • Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Westminster, accused the Irish government of acting in an “aggressive and anti-unionist way” during the Brexit talks. He said:

It should come as no surprise that the Dublin and Irish government wishes to advance its interests. The way it has gone about it in such an aggressive and anti-unionist way is disgraceful and has set back Anglo-Irish relations and damaged the relationships built up within Northern Ireland in terms of the devolution settlement - and that is going to take a long time to repair.

  • Davis claimed that when people were voting to leave the EU, they knew they were voting to leave the customs union.
  • The Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, a hardline Brexiter, praised the DUP for opposing the EU deal proposed yesterday. He said:

[The DUP] have helped Her Majesty’s government stick to its own policy in these negotiations. Is it not essential that the red lines on maintaining the United Kingdom and on regulatory divergence whence the benefits of leaving come are indelible red lines?

David Davis.
David Davis. Photograph: -/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

My colleague Daniel Boffey has this response from an EU official to what David Davis was saying in his UQ. (See 2.26pm.)

What David Davis said about regulatory alignment applying to whole of UK after Brexit

Here is the key line from David Davis.

  • Davis, the Brexit secretary, said that the government wanted the whole of the UK to have “regulatory alignment” with the EU after Brexit. Effectively he was conceded something that Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, proposed only this morning. (See 10.08am.) Davis made the point most explicitly in response to a question from the pro-remain Conservative MP Antoinette Sandbach, who asked for the “regulatory alignment” condition in the Brexit deal almost signed yesterday to apply to the whole of the UK. Davis replied:

The presumption of the discussion was that everything we talked about applied to the whole United Kingdom. I re-iterate: alignment isn’t harmonisation, it isn’t having exactly the same rules. It is sometimes having mutually recognised rules, mutually recognised inspection, all of that sort of thing as well. And that is what we are aiming for.

Davis repeatedly said that regulatory alignment would not involve the UK harmonising its rules with the EU. And he claimed that what he was saying about regulatory alignment had been set out by Theresa May in her Florence speech (see 1pm), although his words today seemed to go further than what she said.

Later, in response to a question from Labour’s Stephen Timms (see 1.33pm), Davis said the UK would only be seeking “regulatory alignment” with the UK in the event of a trade deal. He implied that, if there were no trade deal, the UK would consider itself free to diverge.

This is an area where there does seem to be a difference between what is proposed for Northern Ireland and for the rest of the UK because the key sentence in the draft that emerged yesterday (see 9.23am) talked about Northern Ireland maintaining regulatory alignment with the EU “in the absence of agreed solutions” - ie, in the event of no trade deal. It was a safety net clause, and that safety net only applied to Northern Ireland.

Updated

Q: Are you not worried that you are jeopardising the integrity of the UK by your actions?

No, says Dodds. He says MPs will not allow the UK to be broken up. It was gratifying to hear Ruth Davidson say that this morning, he says.

Dodds says what matters is the text of an agreement. A text must translate the principles of what has been negotiated.

Q: Does the DUP have a veto over what the government does?

No, says Dodds. He says the Irish government has a veto. It is acting in a reckless and dangerous way.

He says the tone has changed since Leo Varadkar and Simon Coveney took power.

Q: Would you tear up the confidence and supply agreement if the government went too far?

Dodds says he does not think the government will propose anything that would separate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK, so that question won’t apply.

He says the text the DUP were shown late yesterday morning was not consistent with what the DUP had been told to expect. It was too vague, he says.

He says the “regulatory alignment” proposals were introduced by the Irish government. They are not necessary. There are sensible approaches to the border issue, such as trusted trader schemes.

Dodds says the EU has given a veto to the Irish government. It might want to reconsider that, he says.

Dodds says the DUP will work for as long as is necessary to get the right outcome.

And he says if the Irish government continues its aggressive stance, it will put a deal at risk.

He is now taking questions.

Q: Do you want the government to walk away?

Dodd says the DUP does not want the talks to fail. It wants a sensible Brexit. It wants the government to honour its red lines, which he says are the same as the DUP’s.

DUP press conference

Nigel Dodds, the DUP leader at Westminster, is giving an on-camera statement now.

He says the government has made clear the constitutional integrity of the UK will not be undermined.

He says the DUP only received a written text late of the proposed Brexit deal late yesterday morning.

The DUP immediately said it was unacceptable, he says.

Despite several briefings over the course of the last few weeks, we only received written text late yesterday morning.

We understand this was due in part to delays caused by the Irish government and the EU negotiating team.

Upon immediate receipt of that text we indicated to senior government representatives that it was clearly unacceptable in its current form.

Updated

The David Davis statement is over now.

Amber Rudd, the home secretary, is now making a statement on the Anderson report into the terror attacks this year.

But I will keep focusing on Brexit, and I will post a summary of the highlights from the Davis statement shortly. It was more revealing than we expected.

Davis says the UK would expect a free trade agreement with the EU to have a section covering services.

Labour’s Ruth Cadbury asks if the plan is for Northern Ireland to have regulatory alignment with the EU in the 142 areas all deemed to be covered by the Good Friday agreement.

Davis says not all those areas are covered by EU law.

Labour’s Alex Sobel asks if the government expects the DUP to join the government.

Davis says that is a question for the DUP.

The DUP’s Ian Paisley tells Davis he is pleased the UK showed that it could say no to the EU. And will the UK tell Ireland that, if there is no free trade deal, that will cost them £1.5bn.

Davis says a free trade deal is best for Ireland.

Stephen Timms, the Labour MP, says the customs union was not on the ballot paper at the referendum. He says Davis seems to be saying today that the regulatory alignment principle will apply to the whole of the UK.

Davis says alignment is not the same as harmonisation. If we get a free trade areas, that will apply to the whole of the UK, he says.

Sylvia Hermon, the independent MP for North Down, says the DUP do not speak for everyone on Northern Ireland. Will Davis explain how May’s plans will benefit the whole of the UK. She says she was embarrassed about what happened to May as a result of the DUP’s actions.

Davis says the Brexit plan will benefit the whole of the UK.

Davis claims it was clear during the referendum that voting to leave the EU meant leaving the customs union. This provokes some jeering from opposition MPs.

Labour’s Mike Gapes asks what is the difference between regulatory alignment and regulatory convergence.

Davis says one is about harmonisation, and one is not.

UPDATE: To clarify - Davis was saying convergence was the same as harmonisation, not that alignment was.

Updated

Labour’s Chuka Umunna says the Tories put leaving the single market and the customs union to the electorate at the election and lost their majority.

Davis says 85% of MPs were elected on manifestos saying leave the EU.

Richard Graham, a Conservative, says this UQ is badly timed.

John Bercow, intervenes. He is taking this personally. It is not for Graham to question the judgment of the chair, he says. (It was Bercow who authorised the UQ.)

Davis says the approach the UK takes will treat the whole of the UK as a constitutional entity and an economic entity.

And here is HuffPost’s Paul Waugh on David Davis.

The Tory Brexiter Peter Bone asks Davis to confirm that it is government policy to leave the EU on 29 March 2019.

Davis says it is not just government policy, it is EU law.

Labour’s Pat McFadden asks Davis about Ruth Davidson’s proposal. (See 10.08am.) She’s right, isn’t she?

Davis avoids the question, and criticises Labour policy instead.

Here is my colleague Dan Roberts, the Guardian’s Brexit editor, on David Davis’s line on regulatory alignment. (See 1.06pm.)

The Tory Mark Pritchard asks if it is possible to have regulatory alignment while being out of the single market and the customs union.

Davis says that is possible.

Labour’s Ben Bradshaw challenges Davis to give MPs a free vote on staying in the single market and the customs union.

Davis says the government was elected on a manifesto to leave the single market and the customs union.

Sir Desmond Swayne, a Conservative, urges the government to return to the policy of giving no running commentary on the Brexit talks.

Davis says ‘regulatory alignment’ condition intended to apply to whole of UK, not just Northern Ireland

Antoinette Sandbach, a Conservative, says thousands of jobs in her constituency depend on regulatory alignment. Can we have that for the whole of the UK?

Davis says that was the intention. He says alignment is not the same as harmonisation.

  • Davis says ‘regulatory alignment’ condition intended to apply to the whole of the UK, not just Northern Ireland.

Updated

The DUP’s Nigel Dodds says the Irish government wishes to advance its interests.

The way it has gone about it in such an aggressive way is disgraceful.

He says that has set back Anglo-Irish relations, and that that “will take a long time to repair”.

The DUP would not allow any settlement that allowed economic divergence between Northern Ireland and the UK.

He says there is now agreement from everyone that the UK must stay together.

Davis says the DUP stands for the UK. So does the Conservative and Unionist party.

Updated

Davis says yesterday it was not London forecasting an early deal, but Brussels.

Labour’s Yvette Cooper asks if the government has now ditched regulatory alignment. Or does it accept that it is of value for the whole of the UK.

Davis says May set out her views in the Florence speech. The UK wants to maintain things like safety and food standards. But it does not necessarily want to achieve these using the same means as the EU. That is what regulatory alignment means.

The Brexiter Tory Bernard Jenkin says Labour is proposing a “half-in, half-out” Brexit.

Labour’s Chris Bryant says the government has chosen a majority reliant on the DUP. But there is another majority in the Commons, for a soft Brexit.

Davis says the government is honouring the result of the referendum.

The Tory Brexiter Jacob Rees-Mogg says the DUP has done the government a favour.

Labour’s Liz Kendall says the way to protect the border and keep the UK together is to stay in the single market and the customs union. The government has chosen not to, putting the UK at risk.

Davis says Kendall was elected on a manifesto saying Labour would respect the referendum result. He says John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, said staying in the customs union would not respect that.

Anna Soubry, the pro-remain Tory, says if regulatory alignment is good enough for Northern Ireland, it is good enough for the rest of the UK. There is a consensus in the Commons on this, she says. There is a solution - something that conveys the affect of staying in the customs union. Let’s grab that idea, she says.

Davis says the UK will not treat any part of the UK differently from any other part.

Hilary Benn, the Labour chair of the Commons Brexit committee, says he hopes the government finds a form of words that enables talks to move on to phase two. Ruth Davidson and the mayor of London have both said the “no divergence” principle should apply to the whole of the UK. Shouldn’t the government agree?

Davis says Labour has already rejected the idea of keeping the UK in the customs union.

Owen Paterson, the Tory former environment secretary, asks Davis to confirm that the integrity of the UK comes first and that “no deal is better than a bad deal”.

Davis says he has already confirmed this.

He says the border issues are best dealt with in the next phase. He says the Irish prime minister and Keir Starmer have both said that too.

From Labour’s Luciana Berger.

The SNP’s Peter Grant says Theresa May is today being interviewed for the job of Scotland football manager because of her ability “to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory”.

Davis is responding to Starmer.

He says the government will not allow different parts of the UK to have different EU rules, as the SNP propose. A Conservative and Unionist government would be especially opposed to this, he says.

Starmer seems to have been inspired by the Telegraph’s Europe editor, Peter Foster, who tweeted this line yesterday.

Sir Keir Starmer, the shadow Brexit secretary, says this gives a new meaning to the phrase “coalition of chaos”.

He says yesterday the government expected a deal. It ended with May giving a 49-second press conference.

He says the problem is May used her conference speech in 2016 to propose a hard Brexit, while saying there would be no hard border in Northern Ireland. Yesterday the rubber hit the road.

He says May should rethink her overall Brexit strategy.

And he says yesterday confirmed that the “DUP tail is wagging the Tory dog”.

He asks May to drop the proposed amendment to the EU withdrawal bill fixing the Brexit date. Yesterday showed why that was absurd.

David Davis responds to urgent question on Brexit talks

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, is responding to a Commons urgent question tabled by Labour about the Brexit talks.

He says the negotiations are ongoing as we speak. We are in the middle of a round, he says.

Progess has been made, but we have not yet reached a conclusion, he says.

He says the government’s aims are as they have always been.

It wants to protect the Good Friday agreement, and ensure there is no hard border in Ireland. It also wants to protect the integrity of the UK.

He says they expect to convene in Brussels later this week. He or the prime minister will then update parliament.

All parties are confident of getting a deal by the end of the week, he says.

RTE’s Tony Connelly reports what the European commission spokesperson is saying about the Brexit talks today.

This is from Antonio Tajani, president of the European parliament.

A useful summary of where we are on the Brexit talks.

More from the lobby briefing.

Failure to complete the first phase of Brexit negotiations is costing UK pharmaceutical companies “an enormous amount of money”, industry representatives have warned.
As the Press Association reports, with less than 18 months to go until the official date of EU withdrawal in March 2019, companies are having to make preparations now, with some setting up facilities and offices abroad at a cost of tens of millions of pounds, MPs were told.

Giving evidence to the Commons Business committee, the chief executive of the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, Mike Thompson, said the sector was in need of “certainty” from the government now on issues like post-Brexit alignment of regulations with the EU and the terms of any transition period. Thompson told the committee:

One of the challenges for us is that it is not unusual for politicians to think they don’t need to do a deal until the absolute last minute.

But for business people, we have to plan ahead. The fact that we haven’t had the time to plan ahead has meant companies have had to take these contingency decisions, which is costing them an enormous amount of money.

He said the industry’s message to the government would be:

Can you please get into phase two as quickly as possible, because we need to have some decisions so we can plan to ensure the continuing supply of medicines to patients across Europe?

9 terror attacks prevented in past year, MI5 boss tells cabinet

The Number 10 lobby briefing has just finished.

Updated

Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP chief whip, has used Twitter to back Ruth Davidson’s call for regulatory alignment condition that will apply to Northern Ireland under the proposed deal to cover the whole of the UK too. (See 10.08am.)

And Simon Hamilton, a former DUP minister in the Northern Ireland executive, is also retweeting Davidson favourably.

Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, is not planning to meet Theresa May today, the Telegraph’s Christopher Hope reports.

Ruth Davidson called Theresa May in London this morning to alert the prime minister she was openly to challenge UK proposals for a special EU deal for Northern Ireland. (See 10.08am.)

In a further sign that the Scottish Tory leader is unhappy with the UK’s negotiating stance and is pressing for a softer form of Brexit, Davidson wanted to give May advance notice she planned to openly break ranks with government policy.

In a statement issued via Twitter, Davidson implied she believed May’s draft deal to offer Northern Ireland special terms under the single market and customs union risked bolstering Nicola Sturgeon’s calls for independence.

Davidson’s advisers refused to disclose May’s response, but they said Davidson wanted to tell the prime minister “these are my views and this is where I’m going publicly.”

Democratic Unionist party sources have insisted today that a deal aimed at cracking the conundrum of the post-Brexit Irish border was possible on Monday.

Amid the recriminations over who is to blame regarding the failure to reach a deal on the frontier and free trade across it, DUP sources claim that it was the leak from the Irish government that scuppered the chance of an agreement between unionists in Northern Ireland, Theresa May’s government and Ireland.

That critical phrase ‘regulatory alignment’, which was interpreted as a backdoor way of keeping Northern Ireland inside the EU customs union while the rest of the UK left it could have been the basis of agreement, the DUP sources said.

They claimed that the original plan was for the regulations to ease the flow of trade in goods and services on the island of Ireland to be drawn up in London with the DUP fully consulted.

“Everything was OK until a leak of a draft came out on Monday via RTE which was not part of the negotiations between London and Dublin. This inaccurate version of the deal spooked the horses. The idea was that these measures to ensure a soft border were to be seen to have originated in London but the leak changed everything,” the DUP sources insisted.

An intriguing claim which suggests perhaps there could still be a chance for the prime minister to sell some kind of special trading agreement to the DUP which would not be seen as “decoupling” Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.

Arlene Foster speaking at the DUP conference last month.
Arlene Foster speaking at the DUP conference last month. Photograph: PAUL McERLANE/EPA

Here is a round-up of what papers in Dublin and Belfast are saying about what happened yesterday.

The Dublin papers have unanimously rounded on the DUP, including the Irish edition of the Sun, whose British edition recently told Leo Varadkar “Ireland’s naïve prime minister” to “shut your gob”.

Today the fork-toothed Sun is unequivocal with the Irish edition warning that the DUP is only one party in the north and it must not be allowed to torpedo the deal on the Irish border.

Irish Times

Front page: Varadkar says May reneged on Brexit Border deal as Tory MP s back DUP

Leader: DUP long ago conceded the principle of regulatory alignment with Dubln

The DUP’s opposition to special status is more political stagecraft than principled conviction.

The Belfast Agreement enshrines Northern Ireland’s special status. The region already opts out of many British laws the DUP doesn’t like, and, as unionist support for a 12.5% corporate tax rate in the North shows, it has long ago conceded the principle of regulatory alignment with the Republic.

Irish Independent

Front page headline: Soft border now in sight despite hardline revolt

Leader: DUP has veto on Brexit talks.

The concern now is that if the DUP has a veto over the British government, it does not bode well for the future of the talks. The party is a minority part of the British governent. If it can apply the hand brake from the back seat, while Mrs May is supposed to be driving the bus, then the outlook is not promising.

The Sun (Irish edition)

Front page headline: Leo fury as DUP halt soft border

Leader: Brexit bungles

The DUP are only one party – and one party must not be allowed to torpedo a vital deal which is crucial to the future of the island. Our government must stand firm on Brexit.

Belfast Telegraph

Leader: Cool heads must prevail

There will be much point-scoring for such political bungling, but inevitably a great deal of blame must rest with the British prime minister, who seems to have not understood fully the unionist mindset so clearly represented by the DUP.

It is not as if Mrs Foster and her colleagues had a sudden rush of blood to their heads as the developments in Brussels gathered apace.

On the contrary, the DUP has made it crystal clear for some time now that they wish to exit from the EU on the same terms and conditions as all other parts of the UK.

Irish News

Leader: Mrs May is badly damaged.

It appears the DUP has flexed its muscles and the prime minister has caved in, a move that will undermine her already weakened position.

Mrs May comes out of all this badly damaged.

She took a calculated risk on the arrangements contained in the border deal, knowing that failure to get to Phase Two of the negotiations would place her in an impossible position.

David Davis to respond to Commons urgent question on Brexit at 12.30pm

Updated

It was not just the Irish border issue that scuppered a deal yesterday. In Brussels yesterday Theresa May said there were two issues where the UK and the EU could not agree, and in the Sun today Tom Newton Dunn has details of the second dispute, on the role of the European court of justice.

The EU wants the ECJ to have an ongoing role in adjudicating on issues affecting the rights of EU nationals. The UK government is opposed to this, but reportedly it is offering a compromise whereby Britain could voluntarily agree to refer some of these cases to the ECJ.

Newton Dunn says that May wanted this arrangement to last for less than five years, but that the EU refused.

On the Today programme this morning David Jones, the former Brexit minister and a prominent Tory Brexiter, expressed strong reservations about this plan. He said that he might be willing to accept an arrangement like this, but only for a short time. He said:

If that were to be implemented, it would have to be very, very tightly time-limited, possibly to coincide with the period that the government has already announced that they will be allowing EU citizens to remain in this country before they get permanent right to reside [around two years].

Asked about the apparent EU demand for the ECJ to carry on having this role indefinitely, Jones said that would be “a huge source of concern”.

David Jones.
David Jones. Photograph: Ben Cawthra/LNP/REX

Speaker grants Commons urgent question on Brexit talks

The speaker has granted an urgent question on Brexit at 12.30pm, my colleague Anushka Asthana reports.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, arriving in Downing Street this morning. His office is at 9 Downing Street.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, arriving in Downing Street this morning. His office is at 9 Downing Street. Photograph: Hannah Mckay/Reuters

MPs may get the chance to vote on protecting the principles of the Good Friday agreement as part of the Brexit deal tomorrow, ITV’s Robert Peston reports.

The pound continued to fall in value this morning following Theresa May’s failure to clinch a Brexit deal, Bloomberg reports.

My colleague Simon Jenkins has written a First Thoughts column saying Theresa May should face down the DUP. Here’s an excerpt.

May must call the DUP’s bluff at once – and incidentally confront her own “rebel 50”. She must insist that it is this deal or the idiocy of the cliff edge. No deal has minimal support in parliament and in the country. Especially on worker migration, it would impose a massive economic burden on Britain, and on Northern Ireland a nightmare. A deal there must be. The backwoodsmen must be driven to the back of the wood.

Now May must urgently call a meeting with the leaders of other parties in the Commons, and request assurances on a vote in favour of the Brussels agreement. In return she should form an all-party committee to monitor the ongoing talks. Party politics should be off the table for the duration. If Labour or others are unhappy with the eventual settlement, she can promise – or threaten – another referendum or an election. She might indeed have no option. For the DUP that could well drive them from majority status.

And here is the full article.

According to the Economist’s Tom Nuttall, Cecilia Malmström, the EU’s trade commissioner, said today that the UK would not be able to roll over the EU’s free trade deals after Brexit. There are currently around 60 non-EU countries covered by EU trade deals, and the British government claims it will be relatively easy to replicate them after Brexit.

She was also disobliging about the Guardian.

This is from Sky’s Ireland correspondent, David Blevins.

Davidson says regulatory alignment deal for Northern Ireland should apply to whole of UK

The Scottish Tory leader, Ruth Davidson, has called for Theresa May to extend the special EU deal being sought for Northern Ireland across the UK, arguing that it would protect the UK’s internal markets.

Davidson said Nicola Sturgeon’s demands for special single market deals for Scotland, and potentially Wales and London, should be rejected since they would undermine the integrity of the UK.

But in a departure from the deal being pursued by UK negotiators, Davidson has suggested that if Northern Ireland did win special regulatory deals for specific sectors,, to smooth cross-border trade with Ireland, those deals should apply UK-wide.

That implies the Scottish Tories are edging closer to Sturgeon on her calls for a softer form of Brexit, although not so close Davidson would countenance her 13 Scottish Tory MPs backing a rebellion against May’s minority government.

In a statement Davidson said:

The question on the Brexit ballot paper asked voters whether the UK should stay or leave the European Union - it did not ask if the country should be divided by different deals for different home nations.

While I recognise the complexity of the current negotiations, no government of the Conservative and Unionist party should countenance any deal that compromises the political, economic or constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.

All sides agree there should be no return to the borders of the past between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Similarly, jeopardising the UK’s own internal market is in no-one’s interest.

If regulatory alignment in a number of specific areas is the requirement for a frictionless border, then the prime minister should conclude this must be on a UK-wide basis.

Davidson’s intervention is intriguing since in theory she has 13 Scottish Tory votes at Westminster at her disposal, although several new Scottish Tory MPs are far more Euro-sceptic than she is, which may influence May’s thinking. Her formula raises the question of whether it would also win support from the Democratic Unionist party, since May is dependent on DUP votes at Westminster.

Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader.
Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader. Photograph: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

Hammond says he is 'very confident' government will be able to revive Brexit deal

Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is Brussels for an Ecofin (economic and financial affairs council) meeting. He has said he is “very confident” that the government will be able to revive the Brexit deal, the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg reports.

In his Today programme interview Peter Ricketts, the former head of the Foreign Office, said what happened yesterday left the impression that Theresa May has not got the authority to deliver a Brexit deal. He said:

It’s pretty extraordinary that this wasn’t all stitched up with the DUP beforehand.

We’re used to prime ministers going to Brussels and having a row with the EU and coming back without an agreement, but to go agree with the EU and then have a row on your own side is inconvenient.

It leaves an impression, I think, in Brussels that the prime minister hasn’t got authority over her own side and that will knock confidence in doing a final deal ... I think it leaves an impression that the prime minister hasn’t got the authority to get through these difficult negotiations.

The deputy leader of Sinn Fein, which represents the nationalist community in Northern Ireland has appealed to the DUP not to be “reckless” and stop the Brexit deal because of local “orange vs green” politics.

Mary Lou McDonald, who is widely expected to take over from Gerry Adams when he retires, said the deal agreed by Irish and British negotiators in Brussels yesterday was the right one for the island of Ireland. She told RTE’s Morning Ireland:

I think the DUP position has been illogical, and frankly reckless on this topic from the word go.

I would appeal to the DUP to understand this is not a case of orange vs green, this is all of us who live on this island protecting ourselves and protecting each other.

Sinn Fein is the second largest party in Northern Ireland and won seven seats in Westminster in this year’s general election.

However it does not take them because of Sinn Fein’s long standing policy of not swearing allegiance to the Queen or taking its seats in Westminster. Its Brexit policy is that Northern Ireland should have special designated status.

McDonald said:

I think we need the DUP to step back and understand that this isn’t a matter of short term political positioning; that Brexit will be as ruinous for farmers in Fermanagh as for a farmer in Bandon and in the interests of our stability, our collective welfare and stability.

Mary Lou McDonald
Mary Lou McDonald Photograph: Niall Carson/PA

Sturgeon challenges Labour to unite with SNP and pro-EU Tories to keep UK in single market

Nicola Sturgeon has called for opposition parties and pro-EU Conservative MPs to form an informal coalition at Westminster to ensure the UK remains in the single market and customs union, exploiting the disarray in Theresa May’s government.

The first minister challenged Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, to get his act together in a tweet on Tuesday morning, stating: “This could be the moment for opposition and soft Brexit/remain Tories to force a different, less damaging approach - keep the UK in the single market and customs union. But it needs Labour to get its act together. How about it @jeremycorbyn?”

StuSturgeon senses an opportunity to reassert herself on the Brexit agenda after UK officials agreed a putative deal for Northern Ireland to stay aligned to EU single market and customs unions rules in cross border trade with Ireland, only to see that rejected by the Democratic Unionist party.

She has Labour allies in Carwyn Jones, the Welsh first minister, and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, who both want to the UK to stay in the single market. Labour at Westminster, however, has so far only proposed an extended transition period and will not accept the free movement of people that single market membership demands.

Corbyn’s rejection of a soft Brexit alliance could well strengthen Sturgeon’s appeal to pro-EU voters in Scotland at Labour’s expense. On Monday the latest Survation opinion poll, for the Record, said the gap between the SNP and Labour had closed significantly to nine points in a Westminster vote after the election of Richard Leonard as Scottish Labour leader. Unlike his pro-EU leadership rival Anas Sarwar, who campaigned for Scotland to remain in the single market, Leonard backs Corbyn’s stance.

Theresa May chairs cabinet this morning knowing that she has just a few days at most to rescue the Brexit deal almost agreed yesterday after it was torpedoed by the DUP.

Yesterday’s setback was the worst the government has had since the Brexit negotiations started about seven months ago. But quite how catastrophic was it? One view is that this was just part of routine Brussels/Ulster talks choreography, where no one ever signs up to something without a bit of a row because otherwise voters think they haven’t fought their corner. The Sunday Times’ EU correspondent Bojan Pancevski was one of those making this argument yesterday, and on RTE this morning Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Conservative foreign secretary, was saying much the same thing. ”This is classic last-minute drama which is pretty common in Europe,” he said. “There is no reason at all why this cant be sorted out.”

But another view is that it is much more serious, because it has exposed a fundamental contradiction in what the British government wants to achieve from Brexit; it hopes to take the UK, including Northern Ireland, out of the single market and the customs union, while preventing the re-emergence of border controls between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Many people, like the Commons Brexit committee, say achieving both is impossible. Or, as the former head of the Foreign Office, Peter Ricketts, put in on the Today programme this morning, in rather diplomatic and understated language: “There are too many incompatible objectives jostling here, I think that’s the problem.”

For a rather blunter analysis, this is what Ed Miliband, the former Labour leader, tweeted about an hour ago. Since then it has had 14,000 likes.

The key dispute was over this sentence in the draft agreement.

In the absence of agreed solutions, the UK will ensure that there is continued regulatory alignment from those rules of internal market and customs union which, now or in the future, support north-south cooperation and protection of the Good Friday agreement.

Originally the draft spoke about “no regulatory divergence” instead of “continued regulatory alignment”. The Irish government insist they mean the same thing, but the wording was changed because the British thought “continued regulatory alignment” was softer. The last-minute replacement perhaps explains why the sentence contains the inappropriate from when the sentence really should read “there is continued regulatory alignment with” etc.

This morning the Irish government has made it clear that it will not back down on the substance of what this section says. This is from my colleague Lisa O’Carroll.

And here is the quote from Simon Coveney, Ireland’s deputy prime minister.

We have been moving forward on the basis of good faith. We believe the British government has also been. There has been very difficult negotiations, we recognise these are very difficult political issues to manage for the British prime minister and we want to give her the time and the space to do that.

But we don’t want to give the impression the Irish government is going to reverse away from the deal we felt we had in place and agreed yesterday.

Of course, it there are presentational issues they want to work with we will look at that.

Coveney’s colleague Helen McEntee, the Irish Europe minister, has been saying much the same.

But in London David Jones, the pro-leave former Brexit minister, said that an agreement that proposed “regulatory alignment” between Northern Ireland and the Republic was unacceptable. Asked about the phrase, he told the Today programme:

I don’t think it should be there because I think the problem that we will have is trying to strike free trade agreements around the world [if the UK and Northern Ireland are aligned to EU regulation].

More on this all day. But here is what is in the diary.

9am: Theresa May chairs cabinet.

9.45am: The lord chief justice, Lord Burnett of Maldon, holds his annual press conference.

11.25am: May holds talks in Downing Street with the Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy.

Around 12.45pm: MPs begin a debate on a Labour motion saying that five universal credit assessments should be given to the Commons work and pensions committee. It is another “humble address” motion, like the one used to get the Brexit impact assessments, which means it is binding.

1pm: Adrian O’Neill, the Irish ambassador, speaks at an Institute for Government event.

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.

I try to monitor the comments BTL but normally I find it impossible to read them all. If you have a direct question, do include “Andrew” in it somewhere and I’m more likely to find it. I do try to answer direct questions, although sometimes I miss them or don’t have time.

If you want to attract my attention quickly, it is probably better to use Twitter.

Updated

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