The Latest: Irish say Brexit deal fell apart at last minute

[bronxiteforever]

Source: Washington Post

Ireland’s prime minister says he was told that Britain and the European Union had struck a deal to resolve a Brexit logjam over the Irish border, only for it to fall apart at the last minute.

Ireland and the EU want Britain to give concrete promises that there will be no hard border in Ireland after Brexit.

But after Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party issued an uncompromising statement, British and EU leaders announced that they needed more time for negotiations.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/the-latest-no-deal-yet-on-brexit-divorce-terms/2017/12/04/ae729aba-d90d-11e7-a241-0848315642d0_story.html?utm_term=.04790aa2c3aa

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Ah the DUP can’t wait to start the troubles up again. We have no George Mitchell this time.
May’s devil bargain with the troglodyte party of the hard right will blow this baby up.

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. The DUP told May to stop, and she did:

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

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.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/live/2017/dec/04/theresa-may-heads-to-brussels-hoping-to-conclude-phase-one-of-brexit-talks-politics-live?page=with:block-5a257fffa1598206a1672302#block-5a257fffa1598206a1672302

[bronxiteforever]

2. Thanks for the further info!