When Conservative MPs tabled a no confidence vote against Theresa May last month, the Prime Minister had to make a number of big promises in order to survive it. She pledged not to fight the next election, to find a legally binding solution to the Irish backstop – and to get the DUP back on side. This afternoon we were offered a reminder of how difficult it will be for May to keep that last promise.
Following a lunchtime meeting with May, the DUP’s Westminster leader Nigel Dodds issued a statement making clear that his party’s ‘principled objections’ to the withdrawal agreement have not been resolved. He said that the proposed deal ‘flies in the face of the government’s commitments on Northern Ireland as we leave the EU’. However, Dodds did add that his party would continue to work with the government in the days and weeks to come.
The problem is May doesn’t have much time. Her Brexit deal is supposed to be voted on in less than two weeks. But without a legally binding concession on the backstop it has little hope of passing. Those MPs who said they would not vote against it before Christmas are still waiting to see what the Prime Minister comes back with to make the deal more palatable.
In light of the current deadlock, David Davis – the former Brexit secretary – called on May to postpone it once again. Writing in the Telegraph, Davis argues that the more the vote is pushed back, the more likely it is that the EU will offer a better deal in the ’11th hour’. However, given that the last time May delayed a vote on her deal a no confidence vote was organised against her, such a move would trigger a negative reaction. There’s a chance that Remain-leaning Tory MPs would run out of patience and threaten to join Labour in a confidence vote against the government if it was delayed indefinitely.
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