The Democratic Unionist Party is refusing to guarantee its support for Boris Johnson’s Queen’s Speech in a crunch vote on Thursday.
If the party abstains or votes against the speech, it will tear up the confidence and supply agreement it signed to prop up the Tory minority government following the 2017 snap election.
The Northern Irish party “will meet and discuss and decide” whether to back the prime minister’s legislative agenda, a source told HuffPost UK.
Without the DUP’s 10 votes, Johnson stands little chance of getting the Queen’s Speech through the Commons, putting the PM under immense pressure and raising the prospect of a general election.
The confidence and supply deal, which saw the DUP net £1bn for Northern Ireland, says the party “agrees to support the government on all motions of confidence; and on the Queen’s Speech”, as well as at Budgets and on legislation related to spending.
The DUP has also tabled amendments which would effectively wreck Johnson’s Brexit deal, a centrepiece of the Queen’s Speech which has enraged the party and alienated it from the government.
The proposed withdrawal treaty would see Northern Ireland follow European single market rules on goods and act as an entry point to the EU customs union, meaning checks would apply between the province and the rest of the UK.
Johnson made the concessions to get rid of the old Irish backstop negotiated by Theresa May.
But he has been accused of abandoning commitments to his former DUP allies to ensure there is no trade border between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK, while maintaining an invisible border with the Republic of Ireland.
Make sense of politics. Sign up to the Waugh Zone and get the political day in a nutshell.
Responding, the DUP has tabled amendments to the withdrawal agreement bill (WAB), which puts the deal into law, to ensure companies do not have to make customs declarations on goods travelling between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.
It also wants to ensure unionists have a veto on the arrangements for Northern Ireland coming into force.
Johnson initially proposed this but conceded to EU demands that a simply majority of Northern Irish politicians could approve the deal.
But the DUP argues this would breach the Good Friday Agreement, which brought peace to Northern Ireland by ensuring power is shared equally between unionists and nationalists.
The DUP’s Brexit spokesman Sammy Wilson has described the deal as “toxic” and “in direct contravention” of the peace accord.
If the amendments pass, Johnson’s deal will effectively be wrecked as he would be forced to go back and renegotiate it with the EU.