Belfast trip fails to gain support for deal as May heads into crucial EU talks

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Theresa May has failed to rally Northern Ireland support behind her quest for a Brexit deal, as nationalist and unionist parties further entrenched their positions for and against the backstop as she ended a two-day visit to Belfast.

The Democratic Unionist party (DUP) insisted on Wednesday that the prime minister should replace the backstop a day after May appeared to soften the government’s stance on the insurance provision to protect against a hard border.

Westminster had voted to leave the European Union with “alternative arrangements” for the Irish border, Arlene Foster, the DUP leader, said after meeting May at Stormont.

“It is welcome that the prime inister is travelling to Brussels to seek changes but she must stand strong and by the commitments she made to the House of Commons. That is her mandate and that is what I expect. The backstop would undermine the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom ... it is the main problem.”

The DUP’s stance will limit the prime minister’s room for manoeuvre when she visits Brussels on Thursday to seek a revised Brexit deal with the EU.

May arrived in Belfast on Tuesday saying she sought a deal that would command “broad support” in Northern Ireland.

Brexit: May's pledge on Irish border threatens to reopen Tory rift Read more

She received a respectful, wary response from business leaders but the party’s five main parties appeared more polarised after meeting her at Stormont. It is the site of the region’s power-sharing assembly, which has been mothballed for two years in a dispute between Sinn Féin and the DUP.

The Ulster Unionist party (UUP) urged the prime minister to introduce direct rule government for Northern Ireland if no Brexit deal can be agreed – anathema to republicans.

Sinn Féin, which supports the backstop, issued a harsh rebuff to May, saying she lacked credibility and was hostage to the DUP support at Westminster. It called for a referendum on Irish unity.

“We are now 51 days from the Brexit deadline and the British prime minister has come here empty handed with the same old rhetoric with no plan, no credibility and frankly no honour,” said Sinn Féin’s leader, Mary Lou McDonald.

“We have told her that the British strategy of running down the clock and playing a game of chicken with Ireland and Irish interests is profoundly unacceptable and wrong. We have told her that the days of Britain dictating to Ireland or Irish people, that those days are over and will not return.”

McDonald endorsed a statement from Donald Tusk, the European council president, that a “special place in hell” awaited irresponsible Brexiters.

Play Video 0:55 'Special place in hell': Donald Tusk derides Brexiters without a plan – video

Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman in Westminster, called Tusk a “devilish trident-wielding Euro maniac” who disrespected those who voted to leave the EU in the 2016 referendum.

The mood at Stormont was further soured by the appearance of graffiti saying “IRA here to stay” in five-foot letters across historic walls in Derry, the scene of a New IRA car bomb last month.

May is scheduled to visit Dublin on Friday for what are likely to be tense talks with the Irish government

Speaking from Brussels the taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said the Irish government had secured land at Dublin and Rosslare ports for checks as it ramped up preparations for the UK potentially crashing out without a deal on 29 March.

A joint statement from Varadkar and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, threw cold water on suggestions from some Brexiters that London and Dublin could tweak the backstop.

“The backstop is not a bilateral issue, but a European one. Ireland’s border is also the border of the European Union and its market is part of the single market. We will stay united on this matter.”