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Johnson Has a Big Brexit Problem: His Northern Irish Friends

Johnson Has a Big Brexit Problem: His Northern Irish Friends

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s hopes of a Brexit deal are likely to depend on him not only persuading the European Union to compromise, but his Northern Irish allies too. They are under growing pressure to do anything but that.

The Democratic Unionist Party, once a fringe grouping notorious for the sectarian rhetoric of its former leader Ian Paisley, accounts for just 10 members of Parliament in Westminster. Yet its influence is now far bigger.

Johnson Has a Big Brexit Problem: His Northern Irish Friends

Without a majority, Johnson probably needs DUP votes to pass any deal in Parliament, and several hardliners in his ruling Conservative party have indicated they will only back a plan that has the smaller party’s support.

The difficulty for Johnson is that the deal he has proposed risks infuriating rather than enthusing the DUP members. Why? Because they passionately want to avoid weakening Northern Ireland’s links to mainland Britain and will face a political backlash in the region if they agree to anything that brings this about.

Sleeping Giant

“None of our 10 members will vote for a border in the Irish Sea,” Ian Paisley, son of the party founder and one of its MPs, said in a RTE interview late on Monday, accusing the Irish government of stirring the “sleeping giant” of unionism.

At the same time, he said “we can all be happy -- this doesn’t have to be quid pro quo where if we gain, the Republic of Irish loses.”

Under Johnson’s original plan, Northern Ireland -- the region the DUP draws its lawmakers from -- would leave the EU’s customs union and Stormont, the local power-sharing assembly, will have a veto over the future arrangements with the EU.

Customs Compromise

That plan was shot down by EU officials and the Irish government. Instead Johnson has offered to loosen the Stormont veto and has proposed a complex compromise solution on customs.

This would see Northern Ireland leave the EU’s customs union but still adhere to its rules. Crucially, the rest of the U.K. will leave the customs union and be free to adopt completely new rules after Brexit. That disparity between the freedom that would be available to mainland Britain and the shackles that Northern Ireland would be bound by is unacceptable to the DUP.

The Union

On Saturday, DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds warned that the party would reject any solution that loosened Northern Ireland’s ties with the rest of the U.K. The party is a “unionist” party after all, and maintaining the constitutional integrity of the entire United Kingdom is vital for its politicians.

Politically, the DUP can’t afford to back down on this. Party leader Arlene Foster faces pressure from the rival Ulster Unionist Party. Once the dominant force in unionism, the UUP now has no seats in Westminster.

The DUP has been largely responsible for that collapse: After UUP Leader David Trimble backed the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended decades of violence in the region, the DUP relentlessly challenged its rival’s unionists credentials.

‘Opened Floodgates’

For Foster, compromising now could leave the DUP vulnerable to a similar line of attack.

“Knowing the political jam that Boris Johnson is in, Dublin and Brussels applied pressure and Boris Johnson, with the blessing of the DUP, gave way,” Reg Empey, UUP chairman said in a statement on Sunday. He warned that the DUP had “opened the floodgates” by agreeing to Johnson’s original plan.

The core disagreement between the U.K. and the EU in the Brexit talks remains over how to keep the border between Northern Ireland and Ireland invisible after Brexit.

Both sides recognize that the region’s long history of violence means a return to customs posts is undesirable. But MPs in Westminster repeatedly rejected Theresa May’s backstop plan, which would have kept the entire U.K. bound tightly to the EU’s single market and customs union to avoid a hard border.

Two Borders

The UUP branded Johnson’ initial proposals -- which would have placed some checks at ports and others elsewhere in Northern Ireland -- “ghastly” and dubbed the DUP leader “Two Borders Foster” for failing to stop it.

Ireland and the EU rejected that those plans anyway, prompting Johnson to suggest moving all checks to ports. Moreover, the U.K. premier has moved away from a plan to give the DUP a veto, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said on Monday after a call with Johnson.

Jacob Rees-Mogg, the U.K. minister in charge of steering legislation through the House of Commons, said that if Johnson secures a deal with the EU, it could be ratified by Parliament very quickly. “The votes are there,” Rees-Mogg told LBC radio on Tuesday.

The DUP may still compromise in order to deliver Brexit, but Foster delivered a blunt message for Johnson late last week: Don’t take her party’s “considerable” influence for granted.

“Anything that traps Northern Ireland in the European Union, whether Single Market or Customs Union, as the rest of the United Kingdom leaves will not have our support,” Foster said. “The prime minister is very mindful of that.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Dara Doyle in Dublin at ddoyle1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.net, Tim Ross

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