DUP says it cannot support Boris Johnson's Brexit deal

[muriel_volestrangler]

Source: The Guardian

The Democratic Unionist party is threatening to scupper the Brexit deal that Boris Johnson is on the brink of agreeing with the EU.

On the morning of a crucial EU summit in Brussels, a joint statement from the DUP’s leader, Arlene Foster, and her deputy, Nigel Dodds, explicitly says the party cannot support the deal that is close to being finalised.
...
The DUP statement said: “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.”
...
The backing of the 10 DUP MPs is crucial for the success of that vote because many Conservative Brexiters have indicated they will not back a deal that is opposed by unionists.




Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/17/dup-boris-johnson-brexit-deal

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Link to tweet

By 'consent', they appear to want give the DUP the ability to pull out of an agreement:

It's understood issues around securing the consent of the Northern Ireland Assembly, Stormont, to the new customs regime have become paramount.

The fear in the DUP is that under the simple majority vote required by the EU to ensure continued membership of the new customs arrangement, the unionist community would have no veto.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50077760

The 'simple majority vote' would just be the whole Northern Ireland Assembly voting regularly, and if a majority of the assembly says continue with the arrangement, then they do. What the DUP wants is for continuing the agreement to be 'contentious':

Contentious votes require the approval of a majority of both Irish nationalist and pro-British members of parliament if a mechanism in Northern Ireland’s 1998 peace deal known as the ‘petition of concern’ is triggered by one-third of lawmakers.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-nireland-politics/irish-pm-says-flawed-northern-ireland-assembly-veto-should-be-overhauled-idUKKBN1WV1R2

(The parties in the assembly are officially designated as 'nationalist' and 'unionist' for this purpose. The DUP dominates the unionist bloc, so this would allow the DUP to trash this deal any time it felt like it. They fear that overall, the Northern Irish people and their assembly members will like the deal too much and keep it.)

[BumRushDaShow]

1. "threatening to scupper"

Wow. Had to look that word "scupper" up.

I guess I would have used "scuttle" there instead but then both terms have a similar definition...

[yellowcanine]

7. British English is so much richer than American English.

One of the reasons i have to laugh at the knuckle dragging "English Only" folks.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. Well to me, the reality is that "English" equals "comes from England"

so....

And of course as an island, they have many boat-related terms. I do remember a restaurant chain called "The Rusty Scupper". I think all the ones around here closed but there is still one in Baltimore at the Harbor -



There's on old pic of the one that was here in Philly overlooking the Delaware River as they were building I-95 in the mid-70s (I remember when it looked like that down there ).

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. Google has an interesting tool called "Ngram Viewer", giving the relative use in print of phrases

up to 2008:

https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=scupper%2Cscuttle&year_start=1800&year_end=2009&corpus=6&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cscupper%3B%2Cc0%3B.t1%3B%2Cscuttle%3B%2Cc0

You can specify American English, British English or any English. In 2008, 'scuttle' was 4.3 times as common as 'scupper' in British English; in American English, it was 9.4 times as common.

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Meanwhile, Johnson announces the deal, despite the DUP

Last edited Thu Oct 17, 2019, 06:37 AM - Edit history (1)

A Brexit deal has been agreed between UK and EU negotiating teams before a meeting of European leaders in Brussels.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson tweeted: "We've got a great new deal that takes back control."

The two sides have been working on the legal text of a deal, but it will still need the approval of both the UK and European parliaments.

The DUP has cast doubt on its sign off, saying they still cannot support it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-50079385

Will Conservative hardliners throw the DUP under the bus? Will enough Labour pro-dealers accept it to make up for the lack of DUP votes and any wingnut Tories who follow them?

Link to tweet

Jean-Claude Juncker: "Where there is a will, there is a #deal - we have one! It’s a fair and balanced agreement for the EU and the UK and it is testament to our commitment to find solutions. I recommend that #EUCO endorses this deal."

Here's the way they're wanting to run Irish trade:

First, EU regulations will apply to all goods in Northern Ireland. This means checks at the border.

Second, NI will remain in the UK’s customs territory. It will therefore benefit from UK trade policy. But it will remain an entry point into the single market. So UK authorities will apply UK tariffs to countries coming from third countries as long as goods entering NI are not at risk of entering the single market. If they are at risk of entering the single market, EU tariffs will apply.

Third, on VAT, the plan will maintain the integrity of the single market, while respecting the UK’s digital wishes.

And, fourth, there will be a consent mechanism. Four years after the arrangements starts, the Northern Ireland assembly will decide by a simple majority if these arrangements stay.

Barnier confirms that the DUP will lose its veto on whether the new arrangements come into force. Under the plan proposed by Boris Johnson earlier this month, the new plan for NI would only have taken affect subject to a vote in the assembly – which the DUP would have been able to veto.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/oct/17/eu-leaders-gather-for-summit-as-boris-johnson-scrambles-to-get-backing-for-brexit-deal-politics-live?page=with:block-5da83df48f08142786c4e679#block-5da83df48f08142786c4e679

Not sure what "the UK's digital wishes" means - I didn't notice that listening live. How you determine which goods are "at risk" of entering the EU single market, I can't tell - seems like that will the place the fraud and smuggling will be concentrated.

Ah - they've kicked the 'at risk' can down the track:

Before the end of the transition period, the Joint Committee shall by decision establish the
conditions under which processing is to be considered not to fall within point (a) of the first
subparagraph, taking into account in particular the nature, scale and result of the processing.
Before the end of the transition period, the Joint Committee shall by decision establish the
criteria for considering that a good brought into Northern Ireland from outside the Union is
not at risk of subsequently being moved into the Union. The Joint Committee shall take into
consideration, inter alia:
(a) the final destination and use of the good;
(b) the nature and value of the good;
(c) the nature of the movement; and
(d) the incentive for undeclared onward-movement into the Union, in particular incentives
resulting from the duties payable pursuant to paragraph 1.
The Joint Committee may amend at any time its decisions adopted pursuant to this paragraph

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/revised_withdrawal_agreement_including_protocol_on_ireland_and_nothern_ireland.pdf

[brooklynite]

3. Reminder that, in addition to DUP, Johnson is missing 21 Tory MPs...

...whom he impulsively kicked out of the Party after they supported a "No Hard Brexit" Bill

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. I think he reckons he can get many of those to support this

It's a deal, and nearly all of them voted for May's deal (more than Johnson did himself, for instance). What he needs is some Labour MPs (eg Stephen Kinnock) willing to support it (Corbyn has already said it's worse than May's deal, so Labour won't be supporting it as a party).

[Denzil_DC]

6. It's worse than May's deal, not just from Corbyn's point of view,

but from the ERG's and Johnson's himself, and his past condemnation of May's deal as an abject capitulation has come back to haunt him.

[Denzil_DC]

5. Michel Barnier now says the DUP has lost its veto:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2019/oct/17/eu-leaders-gather-for-summit-as-boris-johnson-scrambles-to-get-backing-for-brexit-deal-politics-live

They dug in too hard, and lost their key advantage.

The DUP's 10 votes in the UK Parliament (as opposed to the Northern Ireland Assembly, where the veto was mooted) aren't enough to get the agreement passed anyway.

If it's to go anywhere, Johnson's going to have to reach out beyond the allies the government's relied on over the past year, and that would mean more bargaining and a far less adversarial approach, which won't sit easily with the current Cummings-inspired rabble-rousing tactic of using the whole situation as a state-sponsored election campaign.