LONDON (Reuters) – The likelihood of an exit without the agreement of the United Kingdom of the european Union is “significant”, said on Wednesday one of the elected representatives of northern ireland’s democratic unionist Party (DUP), which depends on the parliamentary majority of Boris Johnson.
Interviewed by the BBC about three months of the new date fixed for the separation, Jeffrey Donaldson has pointed out that he was not working to a divorce hard, but that the agreement negotiated by Theresa May with the Europeans was unacceptable because of the “backstop” in northern ireland, this safeguard clause, which must prevent in the last resort, the restoration of a physical border between the republic of Ireland and the british province of Northern Ireland.
According to Donaldson, the DUP agrees with the new british Prime minister that the only way to ratify an agreement of divorce by the house of commons is to give up this “backstop”.
Given the refusal of the Europeans to renegotiate the terms of the agreement, the assumption of a “No Deal” is so significant, and Boris Johnson is right to adopt a hard line, he added.
“The backstop is the default persistent and fundamental to the withdrawal agreement, it is very important for it to disappear”, has confirmed on Sky News the leader of the DUP, Arlene Foster.
“We strongly hope that our new Prime minister will handle this problem, he will understand the European, and particularly in Dublin, that they will not dismantle the United Kingdom, whereas, it is proposed to make the backstop”, she added.
For the time being, the date of Brexit is fixed at 31 October.
(Elizabeth Piper and Guy Faulconbridge; Henri-Pierre André for French service)
