Boris Johnson has been dealt a damaging Brexit blow after the DUP rejected his hopes for a deal.
The pound fell by 0.5 per cent after the Northern Irish party’s leader Arlene Foster announced a 6.45 am statement stating that she can’t support the Prime Minister’s proposal as it is.
That means that even if Boris Johnson settles a deal with the 27 EU leaders, it’s likely to be voted down in Parliament and discussions in Brussels will still be continuous before the two-day summit kicks off at 2 pm and the United Kingdom and EU have still not reached a deal and have still not issued a legal text of it despite missing a series of last-minute deadlines and reports suggested that aside from the DUP’s objections, EU and UK officials had virtually reached a draft deal with some notable problems on VAT.
Boris Johnson talked to European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Mina Andreeva, the European Commission’s chief spokeswoman, tweeted: “Contacts between #EU and UK teams are continuing. Juncker EU just spoke to Boris Johnson. Every hour and minute counts before the #EUCO. We want a #deal.”
DUP leader Ms Foster said the sticking points were customs, consent and VAT rules and she is believed to be concerned about reports of a customs border down the Irish Sea, and a continuing dispute about whether EU VAT rates would apply in Northern Ireland.
Currently, there’s a system where firms pay domestic VAT in the same way as VAT on imports or exports between EU states but this would leave questions about how firms in Ireland and Northern Ireland are charged.
The DUP further fear plans to discuss the (collapsed and dormant) Stormont Assembly over any prospective deal that could leave them without a veto and they’re believed to want to double lock where both nationalists and unionists would have to approve a deal.
DUP chiefs had three face to face meetings with the Prime Minister in swift succession in a frantic attempt to overcome the hurdles but Ms Foster and the DUP Westminster leader Nigel Dodds stated that as things stood they couldn’t support what was being proposed on customs and consent issues and there was a lack of clarity on VAT and that they would continue to work with the Government to seek and get a reasonable deal that works for Northern Ireland and that preserves the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick said the government wanted to work through the DUP’s concerns and that the Prime Minister and his team were in intensive discussions with all parties, including DUP and that they want to provide adequate support for the DUP and unionists in Northern Ireland to feel that the arrangements they would put in place with this deal were sufficient to give them comfort to support it.
Boris Johnson likened Brexit to climbing Everest and escaping Shawshank in a bullish address to MPs that lasted only eight minutes and the Prime Minister told Tory MPs: “If you’ll excuse a mountaineering metaphor, we are at the Hillary Step and the summit, you can see but it’s shrouded in cloud. But we can see it and we will get there.”
And Boris Johnson insisted the United Kingdom would leave deal or no deal on October 31, despite the Brexit Secretary verifying he would ask for a delay by 11 pm on Saturday but then the Tory party is a two-legged disaster zone.
First, under David Cameron they had no majority and had to rely on the Lib Dems to prop them up, then David Cameron was so terrified of his own right-wing and frog faced Nigel Farage, so Cameron called a stupid and massively damaging referendum.
Then Theresa May again called another election and again had to go cap in hand to the NI Bigots party, along with a satchel full of taxpayers money.
She then painted herself into a corner with those ludicrous red lines and boasted she was going to be ‘That bloody difficult woman’ that ended in tears after three years of getting her deal rejected.
Now we have this arch clown Bojo doing political somersaults with the NI Bigots party pulling his strings and then people believe that the Tories are fit to preside over the United Kingdom, good grief, they have better monkeys in Monkeyworld.
But the political damage has been done inside the United Kingdom by the Tory party and it will take decades to recover from it and for what? So that a few mean-minded individuals could say that the United Kingdom had taken back power, yet they didn’t have a clue as to what power they lost in the first place, but the slogan sounded nice so they voted for it and this crew will be the first in line complaining when their investments go down the pan.
World Trade deal, don’t make me laugh. Donald Trump will defecate all over this country once we’re out of the EU.
