BREXIT Secretary David Davis appeared to signal some flexibility on future trade arrangements yesterday as he suggested the UK could align some of its regulations with the EU.
Theresa May is due to visit Brussels again this week to try to reach agreement on the Irish border and other issues which would allow leaders of the 27 remaining EU states to give the green light to begin trade talks.
The prime minister dramatically pulled out of a proposed deal on Monday following an outcry from the DUP.
A leak of a draft text had earlier suggested the British government had conceded the north could maintain 'regulatory alignment' with the Republic, allowing the continuation of a soft border.
Downing Street has indicated that negotiations could go right up to the wire at a summit of European leaders in the Belgian capital on December 14.
Mr Davis told fellow MPs that the UK was "close" to concluding the first phase of Brexit negotiations, dealing with the Irish border, citizens' rights and a financial settlement.
He insisted the government would not accept any deal which saw Northern Ireland treated differently from the rest of the UK as the price of keeping an open border, a key demand of the DUP.
But he side-stepped a call from prominent Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg to make it an "indelible red line" that the UK should be able to diverge from EU rules and regulations after withdrawal, telling him only: "The red line for me is delivering the best Brexit for Britain."
The Brexit secretary stressed that "alignment" did not mean full harmonisation with EU regulations.
"It's sometimes having mutually recognised rules, mutually recognised inspection, all of that sort of thing as well - and that's what we are aiming at," he said.
He said there were areas where Britain wanted the "same outcome but by different regulatory methods".
"We want to maintain safety, we want to maintain food standards, we want to maintain animal welfare, we want to maintain employment rights," he said.
"We don't have to do that by exactly the same mechanism as everybody else. That's what regulatory alignment means."
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson said any regulatory alignment under Brexit had to be applied on a UK-wide basis and the UK should not be divided by "different deals for different home nations".
Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon urged politicians from all parties to get behind a deal to keep the whole of the UK in the European single market.
Sinn Féin northern leader Michelle O’Neill said she told Mrs May in a phone call that "the DUP do not speak for the majority of the people of the north".
“I told Theresa May that the Good Friday Agreement was the clearest evidence of the unique and special circumstances of the island of Ireland.
“I made the case for designated special status within the EU, in the customs union and the single market."
Alliance deputy leader Stephen Farry also said any deal needed to reflect "our particular circumstances" and protect the Good Friday Agreement.
"If they are prepared to seize the moment over the coming days, political parties and civil society have the opportunity to land a Brexit deal in a way which Northern Ireland can be a bridge to both the markets in Great Britain and the EU, and in effect have the best of both worlds."
South Armagh-born Labour MP Conor McGinn told The Irish News that the best long-term solution for the UK was to stay in the single market and customs union.
"But the immediate way to resolve the current impasse on the border is for the UK as a whole to adhere to the same regulatory alignment with the EU that was proposed for the island of Ireland," the St Helens North MP said.
"It’s not credible for Theresa May and the DUP to claim they don’t want a hard border on the island of Ireland and say a sea border between Northern Ireland and Britain is unacceptable, but then oppose the only solution that avoids either."
In a scathing assessment of the turmoil surrounding the EU talks, Labour's Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons that the "DUP tail is wagging the Conservative dog".
The government's approach also received a withering assessment from ex-Labour leader Ed Miliband , who tweeted: "What an absolutely ludicrous, incompetent, absurd, make it up as you go along, couldn't run a piss-up in a brewery bunch of jokers there are running the government at the most critical time in a generation for the country."
