DUP leader views Brexit without agreement as the "most likely outcome" – The Observer

BELFAST (Reuters) – The leader of the North Irish party who backs British Prime Minister Theresa May's government is "ready" to unleash a Brexit without a deal and now sees it as the "most likely outcome," the newspaper reported on Saturday. The Observer, citing a leaked email.

According to the newspaper, Arlene Foster told Ashley Fox, leader of the Conservative MPs in the European Parliament, that she had a "hostile and difficult" exchange during her meeting this week with Michel Barnier, the French leader of the team. the European Union.

"AF said the DUPs were ready for a dead-end scenario, which, in his view, was now most likely," according to the email, whose sender or recipient was not identified by the newspaper.

The observer said it was one of many "disclosed" emails from the highest levels of government.

A spokesman for the DUP declined to comment beyond what Foster had written for an article published Saturday in the Belfast Telegraph. In this document, Foster said that she would prefer not to agree on Brexit to a bad deal, describing the current plans equivalent to "Northern Ireland's annexation" by the EU.

UK and EU negotiators have accelerated this month's Brexit deal, but negotiations on the issue of the border between Northern Ireland, which is part of the UK, and the Irish Republic, an EU Member State, have not yet succeeded.

Without a comprehensive trade partnership between the EU and the UK after Brexit, the EU is seeking to put in place a "support" mechanism whereby Northern Ireland would remain effectively regulated by this block to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

But the DUP, whose support in May is to be adopted by the British Parliament, fiercely opposes any proposal treating the province differently from the rest of the United Kingdom.

"I fully appreciate the risks of a" no deal "(Brexit), but the dangers of a bad deal are worse," said Foster in a Belfast Telegraph article.

"This security arrangement would not be temporary. That would be the permanent annexation of Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK and would leave us always subject to the established rules in a place where we have nothing to say, "she said. added.

"NO GAME"

Great Britain wants any backstop arrangement to be limited in time. Unconditional Brexit supporters in the ruling Conservative party in May fear it could be used to keep the UK indefinitely in a customs union with the EU.

The EU is opposed to any specific deadline.

Foster said his party, which has 10 MPs in the UK parliament, did not bluff in his tough position.

"It's not a game. Anyone who engages in a lighthearted attitude fails to understand the seriousness of the decisions we will make in the coming weeks," Foster said.

"The next days, weeks and months will be critical. The decisions made will shape the type of Northern Ireland our grandchildren will live in. "

Foster said she wanted a viable deal for Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and that she would be going to Dublin for talks Monday.

In an article in another newspaper in Northern Ireland, the Belfast News Letter, former British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, also targeted the background, calling May's agreement to accept it. as a "terrible mistake".

"The only way to get things back on track is to drop the safety net …," Johnson wrote.