Boris Johnson’s hopes of a Brexit deal at today’s EU summit were in tatters after the DUP branded the package unacceptable.
After days of frantic negotiations, the unionists issued a stinging public rebuke, saying they ‘cannot support’ the concessions he has made on customs and consent of the Northern Irish people.
Dealing another hammer blow to the fledgling blueprint, they also condemned a ‘lack of clarity’ on whether EU VAT rates will apply in the province.
Last night ministers had claimed that a deal was ‘fingertip close’ after frantic negotiations.
But the DUP appeared to smash that hope with an early morning statement ahead of more expected talks with Downing Street before the European Council summit starts this afternoon.
With the prospect of an agreement in Brussels looking dead, Mr Johnson now faces the humiliating prospect of waiting while EU leaders discuss how long an extension they will offer to his ‘do or die’ Halloween Brexit date.
A Remainer rebel law means that the PM is obliged to beg for a delay until at least January if he has not agreed a settlement by Saturday.
Mr Johnson has insisted he will never ask for the date to be pushed back – but Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay made clear yesterday that he will obey the controversial legislation.
Pro-EU MPs are also plotting to force a second referendum at an extraordinary ‘Super Saturday’ Commons sitting this weekend, as the premier’s strategy threatens to descend into chaos.
The statement from DUP leader, Arlene Foster, and deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, said: ‘We have been involved in ongoing discussions with the Government.
‘As things stand, we could not support what is being suggested on customs and consent issues, and there is a lack of clarity on VAT.
DUP leaders Arlene Foster and Nigel Dodds are pictured in Westminster yesterday
The party issued a statement in the early hours of this morning saying they could not support the current Brexit deal proposed by Boris Johnson
‘We will continue to work with the Government to try and get a sensible deal that works for Northern Ireland and protects the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom.’
The pound fell 0.5 per cent against the dollar and the euro within minutes of the announcement before later recovering.
Mr Johnson spoke with Jean-Claude Juncker this morning ‘as part of the ongoing discussions on securing a Brexit deal’, Downing Street said.
The DUP’s support is key to winning over hardline Tories in the European Research Group (ERG), the so-called ‘Spartans’ who take their lead from Ms Foster’s position.
Last night its chairman Steve Baker told ITV’s Peston: ‘If the original (Theresa May) deal was a triple-lock, Boris has dealt with two of the three locks.
‘The questions for us were about the remaining items in the Withdrawal Agreement. So on the narrow issue of Northern Ireland, if the DUP are happy, it’s not for us to gainsay them.’
The DUP’s stance would leave Mr Johnson requiring Labour rebels to back his deal in sizeable numbers in order to get through the Commons.
But the signs of it happening are not good for the PM.
Labour MP Stephen Kinnock told Pestoin last night ‘a level playing field’ maintaining EU standards in areas like workers’ rights ‘is absolutely crucial’.
The Government has suggested it wants to diverge from Brussels in these areas.
Housing Minister Robert Jenrick insisted this morning that a deal was still ‘within sight’.
‘It’s a sensitive moment but we remain cautiously optimistic that because the parties want a deal there is a way through this,’ he told BBC Breakfast.
Last night Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, told ambassadors that an agreement had basically been reached – with the possibility of a formal sign-off today.
It was then up to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to convince the DUP of his plans, before putting it all to a vote in Parliament on Saturday following further discussions with EU leaders.
Mr Johnson remained confident, suggesting at Cabinet yesterday afternoon that he still hoped the DUP could be won over.
He also told a gathering of Tory MPs last night that the government was on the ‘Hillary Step’ about to reach the summit of Mount Everest.
He insisted: ‘If it is not possible to achieve a deal we will still leave the EU on October 31.’
Boris Johnson departs the back of Downing Street to attend a 1922 backbench committee meeting in Parliament yesterday. He has teed up a massive ‘Super Saturday’ showdown with MPs as his hopes of a Brexit deal look to be crumbling amid DUP opposition
And he later even compared his intense negotiations to that of a prisoner in The Shawshank Redemption – in which the hero escapes a jail by wading through a tunnel of waste.
Downing Street confirmed the government will now table a motion for the Commons to sit on Saturday – the first Saturday sitting since the Falklands War.
If there is a deal at the summit today MPs will be asked to approve it on Saturday, but if not Mr Johnson is expected to stage a vote on whether to delay Brexit or go for No Deal.
Remainers are also preparing a bid to force a second referendum, as the struggle for the country’s future intensifies.
Amid desperate efforts to win over the DUP – whose 10 MPs are seen as critical to unlocking a Parliamentary majority for a deal – there are hotly denied claims that billions of pounds more funding for Northern Ireland is on the table as a sweetener.
Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, leaves Downing Street amid desperate talks to get a Brexit deal finalised ahead of an EU summit in Brussels today
ERG members (second from left to right) Mark Francois, Steve Baker, Iain Duncan Smith and Bill Cash leave Downing Street following last minute talks to try and secure a Brexit deal
Leader Arlene Foster was in No10 for more talks yesterday afternoon, but she dismissed afterwards EU claims reported by Irish broadcaster RTE that she had given in on key issues.
She tweeted: ‘Discussions continue. Needs to be a sensible deal which unionists and nationalists can support.’
One Cabinet minister told MailOnline there was ‘guarded optimism’ over the chances of getting the DUP on board but they insisted the government is preparing to fight to get Brexit done by October 31 if a resolution cannot be found.
‘We will be ready if the DUP can’t be won over,’ they said.
It comes as chairman of the pro-Brexit European Research Group, Steve Baker, said that ‘great progress’ has been made in talks with Number 10 last night.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel welcome European Commission president-elect Ursula Von der Leyen after a joint Franco-German cabinet meeting in Toulouse, France yesterday. Macron had been optimistic yesterday evening as he said he wanted ‘to believe that a deal is being finalised’
He said: ‘We know there will be compromises, but we will be looking at this deal in minute detail, with a view to supporting it.
‘But until we get that text, we can’t say.’
He added however, that the ERG ‘can’t support deal without seeing text’.
‘We really must see the text in time to read it in order to vote on Saturday,’ he said.
‘Time is becoming very short for everyone now. As Michel Barnier famously said, ‘the clock is ticking’.
‘We need to get through this (European) Council, have the text of the deal, have the implementing legislation ready, and we need to be voting on that on Saturday.’
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier looked to be feeling the pace yesterday as he attending meetings in Brussels
It was a knife-edge day of fresh shirts, Shawshank jokes and tortuous talks that see-sawed between hope and despair – but, asks Jack Doyle, did DUP leader Arlene Foster have the last laugh?
Addressing the Cabinet yesterday, Boris Johnson reached for a vivid cinematic reference to describe the state of the Brexit negotiations.
‘It’s a bit like The Shawshank Redemption. We’re in the tunnel,’ he said – using the EU’s term for the final, intense phase of the talks.
In the 1994 film, a prisoner crawls through a rancid mile-long sewage tunnel before finally tasting freedom.
Later, before the 1922 Committee of backbench Tory MPs, he compared the talks to climbing Everest, saying: ‘We are not quite at the summit, we are at the Hillary Step. The summit is not far but at the moment it is still shrouded in cloud.’
It was typical Boris – both summarising his predicament and raising a laugh, even when the chips are down.
But however easy he found it to make light of the situation, yesterday was a difficult day for the Prime Minister, and the first time he has tasted the intransigence of the DUP.
Yesterday was a difficult day for the Prime Minister, and the first time he has tasted the intransigence of the DUP (pictured, leader Arlene Foster)
It was Mr Johnson’s (pictured) hopes of doing a deal which were scuppered by the Northern Irish party saying ‘No, No, No’
Infamously, Theresa May had to pull out of December 2017 talks with Jean-Claude Juncker to take an hour-long call from a furious Arlene Foster, the DUP leader.
May could be forgiven for a wry smile at his predicament. One MP joked that she was probably ‘doing cartwheels down the corridor’ watching him suffer.
For yesterday, it was her successor whose hopes of doing a deal were scuppered by the Northern Irish party saying ‘No, No, No’.
Late on Tuesday night, in the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s 13-storey Brussels headquarters, there was still optimism a deal could be done. On the fifth floor, the lights were still on as EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s midnight deadline to agree a deal came and went.
After refuelling on sandwiches and pasta salad late in the evening, the negotiating teams, split between multiple rooms to cover more ground, persevered until 1.30am before calling it quits.
At one point a junior UK official was sent out to buy a bag load of white shirts for diplomats on the UK side who were running out of fresh clothes.
Mr Johnson’s chief negotiator David Frost, who leads a team of 25 officials, retired to the British ambassador’s opulent residence on Rue Ducale, but was back in the building at 9am, in one of the fresh shirts.
The negotiations resumed, Frost shuttling between the Commission and the UK Embassy, but to the dismay of the UK side – and despite the Commission briefing to the contrary – there was no Eureka! moment.
Late on Tuesday night, in the Berlaymont, the European Commission’s 13-storey Brussels headquarters, there was still optimism a deal could be done. On the fifth floor, the lights were still on as EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier’s (pictured) midnight deadline to agree a deal came and went
By mid-morning, it was clear why. Foster and her deputy Nigel Dodds entered No 10 for talks with the PM by the back door, via the Cabinet office on Whitehall. They weren’t saying much, but a few hundred yards away in the House of Commons, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson spelled out the party’s demands when he erupted at Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay at a committee hearing.
The deal as it stands would mean Northern Ireland staying in parts of the single market and – in effect – accepting a customs border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. This represents a huge compromise for the unionist party.
What they want, Wilson barked, was ‘cross-community consent’ for the proposal, something he said was required under the Good Friday Agreement. What this means is a vote, or multiple votes, in Stormont, to approve the deal.
The Cabinet meeting was called in the hope Johnson would be able to brief ministers on a deal, but none was available.
While staying upbeat, and delivering his Shawshank Redemption line, he told them: ‘There’s a chance of securing a good deal but we are not there yet.’
Back in Brussels, the EU had other ideas. The anonymous ‘EU sources’ who have enraged No 10 for the past three years, were ‘at it again’, one senior source told me. They briefed friendly journalists that a deal was done. A ‘technical agreement’ had been reached, and the DUP were onside. This was seen in No 10 as a blatant attempt to bounce Mr Johnson into accepting the agreement as it stood. And only hardened the DUP’s resolve.
The source said: ‘The EU haven’t helped with endless babbling about a deal having been done. That briefing was phenomenally unhelpful. People read that stuff and it makes it harder to get this thing over the line.’ Barnier’s deadline slipped and slipped. Due to brief member states at 2pm on the deal, that was pushed back to 5pm and then 7pm. At 4.30pm, Johnson did a five-minute turn at the 1922 Committee of Tory backbenchers, with nothing to announce.
But the Shawshank line went down well. ‘He’s saying he’s up to his eyeballs in s*** but not to give up’, said one MP. Tory MP Mark Francois, deputy chairman of the European Research Group of Brexiteers, said: ‘It was vintage Boris Johnson. It was enthusiastic. It was uplifting. It was positive.’
Some Cabinet ministers are also upbeat about the deal. Attorney General Geoffrey Cox told Cabinet: ‘Last time we were in the seventh circle of hell; this time I’m in an airy villa with a lovely view.’
Yet last night in No 10, the mood was downcast. Johnson’s proposal for a vote in the Northern Ireland Assembly to approve the deal, and one every four years thereafter, hasn’t survived contact with Brussels. It’s far from clear what he can extract from the EU that the DUP will accept. And the grim truth is that without their support, he can’t get his deal through, and there’s little point even turning up to today’s EU Council summit.
In the absence of a deal, the looming deadline set by the Benn Act will force him, on Saturday, to ditch his ‘come what may, do or die’ pledge and delay Brexit. He’s riding high in the polls, but after an extension? Will Leave voters blame the MPs who agreed the ‘Surrender Act’ or will they blame him?
Privately, Mr Johnson’s most senior advisers haven’t given up hope. Perhaps they’re right to, and he will emerge odorous but victorious.
Or perhaps they should be reading another line from Shawshank, delivered by hard-bitten lag Red, played by Morgan Freeman: ‘Let me tell you something, my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing. Hope can drive a man insane.’
Super Saturday’s on the brink: Boris urges MPs to back the first weekend sitting since Falklands
by John Stevens, deputy political editor
Boris Johnson last night tabled plans for a ‘super Saturday’ Parliamentary sitting to get a Brexit deal through the Commons – even as rebel MPs threatened to wreck his hopes.
The Government laid a motion for both Houses of Parliament to sit from 9.30am until 2pm on Saturday, which will be voted on by MPs today.
Should the motion pass, the Commons will sit on Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War in 1982.
The Prime Minister hopes to use the session for MPs to debate – and pass – any Brexit deal he brings back from this week’s crunch Brussels summit.
But yesterday, ringleaders of the 21 MPs who recently had the Conservative whip removed said their support for a deal would be conditional on Mr Johnson first seeking an extension beyond October 31 – or backing a second referendum.
They are said to be concerned that hardline members of the European Research Group could double-cross the Government by backing a Withdrawal Agreement but then withdrawing their support and voting against the actual legislation needed to implement it.
They also don’t believe there is enough time left before October 31 to pass the laws required.
It makes it even more difficult for the Prime Minister to get the numbers he needs to get a deal through the Commons, as Theresa May failed to do three times.
It makes it even more difficult for the Prime Minister to get the numbers he needs to get a deal through the Commons, as Theresa May (pictured) failed to do three times
Last night, the leader of the Independent Group for Change, former Conservative MP Anna Soubry, hinted at opposition to Saturday’s debate.
She said: ‘It is increasingly clear Johnson’s “new” deal is worse than May’s. Parliament will get five hours’ debate on Saturday without any independent assessments, analysis or select committee scrutiny of the most important set of decisions we will make in generations. That’s plain wrong.’
If Britain and the EU cannot finalise the legal text of a deal before Saturday, it is possible MPs could be asked to hold an ‘indicative vote’ on the outline of the plan – to prove the Prime Minister can command the support of the Commons.
An EU source last night claimed European leaders could even refuse to sign off on a new deal until the Prime Minister shows he can make the arithmetic work among MPs.
Remarkably, it has even been suggested that opposition MPs might vote down the motion for the Saturday sitting.
The so-called Benn Act passed by MPs trying to prevent No Deal states the Prime Minister must write to Brussels asking for an extension if Parliament does not agree to a deal by Saturday.
One Cabinet minister said MPs could block the Saturday sitting.
The minister said: ‘There are a lot of MPs who claim they want a delay because they want to prevent No Deal, but actually they just want to stop Brexit altogether.
They just do not want to admit that publicly because they fear a backlash from their constituents.
‘MPs could stop us having a vote on a deal on Saturday because they fear it will pass, and they know without one the Prime Minister will have to ask for an extension. That is one step towards their goal of blocking Brexit entirely.’
Former Tory Cabinet minister Penny Mordaunt said it would be ‘pretty blooming amazing’ if anyone voted against the motion for the Saturday session.
Yesterday, Brexit Secretary Steve Barclay told MPs that Mr Johnson would comply with the Benn Act by writing a letter to Brussels asking for a delay if a deal was not approved by Saturday, following fears the PM could try to scupper an extension with a second contradictory letter or ask a member state to block an extension.