DUP will not support May’s deal in third vote

Leading Conservative Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has finally got behind Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement, only for the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Arlene Foster to announce that she will vote against her Brexit deal for a third time.

The news represents a major blow for May, especially after Rees-Mogg suggested that some critics of her Brexit deal may opt to back it if the DUP did too or agreed to abstain.

‘I am in favour of the deal and I hope the DUP will come over to the deal but we’ll have to wait and see what they do,’ he told reporters.

‘I have no plans to speak to Arlene Foster but I do have conversations with the DUP from time to time,’ he added. ‘I don’t like her deal, I make no bones about this, I don’t think the deal has suddenly got better but simply that the alternative is worse, it’s not having any Brexit at all.’

DUP refuses to abstain

But despite Rees-Mogg’s comments, Foster made it clear that she and her party would never forfeit their vote on Brexit.

‘You cannot abstain on the union. You just could not do that,’ DUP leader Arlene Foster told Irish state broadcaster RTE in an interview, referring to the union between Northern Ireland and Great Britain.

‘Abstention would be the worst of all worlds because you are not actually indicating where you stand on the most important issue of our times so that was never an option,’ she added.

Britain still faces the prospect of a hard Brexit

Michel Perera, chief investment officer at Canaccord Genuity Wealth Management told IGTV’s Victoria Scholar the probability of a hard Brexit is much higher than markets are expecting.

‘It seems to me that the markets has been remarkedly complacent about the risk of a hard Brexit, because at the end of the day, if you do not have a further extension from the EU, you only have three choices: back Theresa May’s deal which has been fully approved by the EU without any changes to it, have a hard Brexit or cancel Brexit by revoking Article 50,’ he said.