The prime minister has told his cabinet he is a liberal Tory running a one nation government
- EU looks to Northern Ireland-only backstop to break Brexit deadlock
- Northern Ireland-only backstop: what is it and will anyone go for it?
- Harriet Harman vows to be ‘scrupulously neutral’ if elected as Speaker
Boris Johnson has secretly ordered the Cabinet Office to turn the government’s public internet service into a platform for “targeted and personalised information” to be gathered in the run-up to Brexit, BuzzFeed is reporting.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson, the DUP chief whip, was on the World at One. Like his boss, Arlene Foster (see 9.58am), he insisted that Boris Johnson would not sanction a Northern Ireland-only backstop. He explained:
I don’t see the prime minister who appointed himself as the minister for the union agreeing to an arrangement that separates Northern Ireland from Great Britain in trading terms.
So, I think that this idea that you have a Northern Ireland-only backstop where you have a trade border in the Irish Sea between Northern Ireland and Great Britain is simply a non-runner. In any event it would contravene the core principles of the Good Friday agreement, the Belfast agreement …
The idea that our influence is waning, I think, flies in the face of reality. Our leader will be meeting with Boris Johnson, we are plugged into the ongoing discussions about alternative arrangements, we have a significant role to play and, therefore, I would argue that our influence remains.
