Brexit: DUP still seeking assurances on backstop as discussions continue – Politics live | Politics

• The Democratic Unionist party is locked in what its deputy leader described as a”constructive dialogue” to try to reach an agreement to allow it to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal, including with the attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, and the chancellor, Philip Hammond.
Downing Street is convinced the support of the DUP is key to unlocking the backing of many Conservative Brexiters when May brings her deal to the House of Commons on Tuesday for the third time.
The discussions, believed to be at the Cabinet Office, are taking place on Friday and expected to continue into the weekend. They are likely to cover the role of any future Northern Ireland assembly if the Irish backstop were used – one of the issues senior DUP leaders have asked for further clarification about.

• David Lidington has insisted Theresa May’s cabinet will continue to work together “very constructively”, despite eight senior ministers, including the Brexit secretary, voting against an extension to article 50.
Steve Barclay voted against a motion tabled by the government, even though he had spoken in favour of it at the dispatch box just minutes earlier.
Others who rejected the idea of an extension were Penny Mordaunt, Liam Fox and Chris Grayling.

• The Liberal Democrat deputy leader, Jo Swinson, has been tipped as the frontrunner to replace the party’s outgoing leader, Vince Cable, who has announced plans to step down from the party in May.
Cable, a former business secretary in the coalition government, announced that he would set a timetable for his departure at the party’s spring conference this weekend.

• Ireland will want to avoid a series of “rolling cliff edges” if the UK requests a delay to its exit from the EU, the country’s finance minister has said.
Paschal Donohoe said London would need to convince the EU27 that an extension to article 50 would not further risk economic disruption.
“I believe it is highly important that we do all we can to avoid being in a scenario of rolling cliff edges … particularly from a financial market stability perspective and economic stability, we need to be aware of that,” he said.

There had been a “constructive dialogue” between the DUP and the government, said the party’s deputy leader, Nigel Dodds following his talks with the attorney general and ministers.

He added that the talks would continue to also focus on the issue of the so-called ‘Stormont Lock’ and how it can be provided for.

The lock in question relates to a series of assurances on Northern Ireland and its place in the UK, which the government published in January.

Those commitments give a restored Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont – which has not sat for two years – a say on any future laws that the European Union may pass if the backstop comes into force.

A government paper promised that this “Stormont lock” on the backstop would be a legally binding commitment.

However, the DUP immediately rejected the paper when it was first put forward in January, dashing hopes that the party would get behind May for the first vote on her Brexit deal.

The DUP’s deputy leader, Nigel Dodds, has emerged from discussions with the government and said that the party is still seeking to have its concerns “assuaged” about the Northern Ireland backstop before it can support Theresa May’s deal.

The party, which in 2017 squeezed £1bn extra for Northern Ireland over the next two years as part of its confidence and supply deal to support the government, is not seeking more money as part of the talks, Dodds.

Dodds said that the chancellor, Phillip Hammond, was in the talks but “nothing more” should be read into the fact that he was present along with the Attorney General Geoffrey Cox. Michael Gove, a key Brexiteer member of the cabinet and Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, was also present for the talks.

“No, we are not discussing more cash,” said Dodds, in answer to questions from the press.

“It’s about Brexit and how we can protect Northern Ireland’s economic and political future,” said the MP.

We’re hearing suggestions that Nigel Dodds, the DUP’s deputy leader, is going to be saying something in a while about his party’s talks with the Attorney General, Geoffrey Cox,

Dodds and colleagues are locked in intensive talks with Cox and the chancellor, Philip Hammond, try to reach an agreement to allow them to back Theresa May’s Brexit deal.

When he’s going to appear, or what he’ll say.. ‘Ulster says Yes?’ .. ‘we’ll keep talking?’ .. we don’t know yet.

The Brexit Secretary, Steve Barclay, has been explaining that extraordinary decision he took last night to vote last night AGAINST the government’s motion extending article 50, after he wound up the debate by making the case FOR it.

Doorstepped by the BBC’s Tom Barton, Barclay said that it had to do with the motion having two parts:

Barclay wound up last night’s debate by telling MPs: “It is time for this house to act in the national interest, it’s time to put forward an extension that is realistic”

The Guardian’s Chief Political Correspondent suggests that a fourth Brexit Secretary may be on the cards.

While MPs bicker over the terms of the UK’s divorce from the EU, British citizens in Brussels who have been worrying about the impact on their lives there have been taking out Belgian citizenship.

The Belgian government’s statistics service, StatBel, this week released figures this week showing a spike in Brits becoming Belgians after the 2016 Brexit referendum.

The Associated Press has been speaking to a few of them, including lobbyist Brian O’Riordan, who described how he has been feeling: “It’s a kind of bizarre feeling, this sense of disempowerment, helplessness watching it all happen, not really understanding why.”

That uncertainty finally pushed him over the edge, according to the AP. He has lived in Belgium for two decades and speaks French to his two border collie dogs all the while being happy to be British. But with Brexit looming, he shifted his pension savings out of Britain and took Belgian citizenship.

In 2015, 127 Britons took Belgian citizenship. The following year the number soared to 506. In 2017, 1,375 of the 23,000 Brits living in Belgium a whopping 6 percent adopted Belgian nationality.

Much of the talks between the DUP and the government are revolving around the role of the Northern Ireland Assembly – which is currently suspended – in the event of the backstop being used.

That’s according to UTV’s Political Editor, Ken Reid.

If the role of the assembly is being discussed, that’s quite new and potentially separate from the question of whether or not the backstop will need to be used, and whether it is time limited. Are they ready to jump?

Northern Ireland has had no functioning elected government since power sharing DUP and Sinn Féin collapsed in January 2017. Civil servants are left to run things but cannot make key decisions.

How that can change is an altogether different can of worms from the current Brexit impasse. Either way, if you want to know more you could do worse than read this piece from Rory Carroll, the Guardian’s Ireland correspondent, about the simmering resentment in Northern Ireland as Stormont sits empty:

A DUP MP, Jim Shannon, has said that the party will not be changing its minds on May’s deal unless there are legally binding changes to ensure that the backstop is limited.

“That is what we have been asking for over the past two years to be honest with you and we can’t understand why the government has not been able to understand that,” he told the BBC’s World at One.

He warned however: “If nothing has chaned then our opinoin has not changed.”

It looks like the government is putting its back into convincing the Democratic Unionists to come on board. This from Sky’s Beth Rigby:

The DUP may or may not be on the move, but Theresa May has also received a boost after Esther McVey, who quit the cabinet over Brexit policy last year, indicated she could vote for the deal next week.

McVey was speaking to the BBC’s Nick Robinson for his politics blog.

Asked if MPs would “hold their noses and vote” for Mrs May’s deal – which is expected to return to the Commons next week – the former minister said: “Yes. They will. I don’t know what the number is, but they will have to do that if they… want Brexit.”