THE Irish government has indicated that they are willing to facilitate a “clarification” being added to the text of any Brexit deal with the UK if it gets Theresa May off the hook with the DUP.
According to Independent.ie, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar would be open to editing the text of the deal in order to help bring the increasingly bitter dispute to an end and to spare any more damage being caused to Anglo- Irish relations.
No requests for changes to the deal outlining “regulatory alignment” between Northern Ireland and the Republic have been made since talks collapsed on Monday, but Dublin has supposedly opened the door to a truce.
The developments in negotiations came to a halt on Monday when Prime Minister May failed to share with the DUP the text of an agreement she was prepared to sign.
DUP leader Arlene Foster has suggested that the idea of closely linking Northern Ireland’s trading rules with Dublin as akin to putting a border in the Irish Sea.
Sources close to the Irish negotiation team claim that they have “concrete evidence of an agreement between Taoiseach and Prime Minister, which has been endorsed by the presidents of European Council and European Commission.
Another source in Dublin rejected any attempt by UK politicians to blame Dublin for delaying the Brexit talks, saying: “If Phase Two doesn’t happen now it’s because of the DUP.”
In the Dáil, Mr. Varadkar admitted that Anglo-Irish relations are at their most fraught in recent history.
“Relations were probably at their peak since independence around the time of the Queen’s visit and the years after that,” he said.
“Relations had been strained in the last year or two, not because of a decision we made but because of Brexit, which is a British policy and a British decision, one that we respect but that we are aware causes enormous problems, not only for us but for others in Europe as well,” he added.
Mrs. May is now scrambling to the get the DUP on board with her Brexit plans before returning to Brussels for further negotiations with the EU in the coming days.
