Ratings agency DBRS has warned that the UK’s AAA rating could be at risk from a Brexit deal that separates Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK. The ratings agency confirmed its rating for the UK at AAA with a ‘Stable Trend’, but noted that “significant uncertainty remains over different regulatory and customs regimes between Northern Ireland and the mainland, and how this might impact the UK” and warns that the “longer-term constitutional integrity of the UK is important to [the UK’s] AAA sovereign rating.” The backstop will put this at risk…

Interestingly, the agency is less concerned about the impact of no deal on the UK’s rating, saying that it “acknowledges some degree of event risk associated with such a scenario, but it expects a broadly appropriate and timely policy response from the UK and the EU to any resulting economic or financial turmoil”. No deal is manageable if the Government takes sensible steps to respond to it, the backstop is not…