'DUP-ed', 'May humiliated': How UK papers reacted to the last-minute block on Irish border deal

BRITAIN-MANCHESTER-CONSERVATIVE PARTY ANNUAL CONFERENCE-DAY 4 Theresa May is now under pressure to secure a new deal Source: Xinhua News Agency/PA Images

AFTER INITIALLY APPEARING like a deal could be reached yesterday, no agreement to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland was agreed.

The UK government had been expected to concede that there would be no “regulatory divergence” on the island of Ireland in relation to the single market and customs union, but these plans were scuppered at the last-minute by the DUP.

The unionist party said it wouldn’t accept Northern Ireland having a different deal to the rest of the UK. Taoiseach Leo Varadkar says he is “surprised and disappointed that the British Government now appears not to be in a position to conclude what was agreed earlier”.

DUP annual conference Arlene Foster said the DUP could not support the deal Source: Niall Carson/PA Images

As the DUP provides the Conservatives with a majority in the House of Commons, their refusal to back the deal put Prime Minister Theresa May in a very difficult place. She will now face her Cabinet today to explain what the next steps are with the EU.

For the first time since perhaps the Brexit negotiations between the EU and the UK started, it had seemed that a solid agreement was in sight.

Unsurprisingly, both the DUP and May are the targets of the disappointment, and in some cases fury, of the UK papers this morning.

“DUP wrecks May’s Brexit deal”

The Guardian described yesterday as a day of chaos, and said that Tory Brexiters had backed the DUP stance.

guardian may dup Source: Guardian