Northern Ireland cannot be cut adrift from UK - DUP leader Foster

Reuters
FILE PHOTO: DUP Leader Arlene Foster talks to the media at a news conference at Stormont in Belfast, Northern Ireland, November 2, 2018. REUTERS/Clodagh Kilcoyne

LONDON (Reuters) - The leader of the small Northern Irish party that props up British Prime Minister Theresa May's minority government said she could not accept a Brexit deal that would cut the province adrift from the rest of the United Kingdom.

Arlene Foster said the draft text of the withdrawal agreement with the European Union appeared to suggest that Northern Ireland would remain aligned on regulations with the bloc in order to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

"It's a question of whether we are separating the union, whether we are dealing with the United Kingdom in a way that leaves us adrift in the future and as the leader of unionism in Northern Ireland I'm not about to agree to that," she told Sky News.

(Reporting by Kate Holton. Editing by Andrew MacAskill)