The DUP has said it will not support the Government if it tables a fresh meaningful Brexit vote because "the necessary changes we seek to the backstop have not been secured".

READ MORE: Brexit latest: DUP will not support PM's deal, says Arlene Foster 

She told Sky News: "What we can't agree to is something that threatens the union, that has a strategic risk to the union. "For us in the Democratic Unionist Party, the union will always come first and that has been the issue right from the beginning of all of this."

READ MORE: Scottish Parliament votes to revoke Article 50 and cancel Brexit 

DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds, replying to a journalist asking if they might abstain on Mrs May's deal, said: "The DUP do not abstain on the Union."

Asked about the pressure on the DUP to back the deal, Arlene Foster told Sky News: "I don't think it's a case of rescuing Brexit because we very much want to see Brexit happening, we believe in Brexit, we believe in the opportunities that are there post-Brexit.

"We wish we were able to spend more time talking about the global opportunities that we believe are there for the nation post-Brexit.

"But instead we have become bogged down in a process, but that process has a Withdrawal Agreement with a backstop that will cause damage to the UK, and for us that is the critical point."

Pinning the blame on Theresa May, she said: "Now we are in a situation where we cannot sign up to the Withdrawal Agreement and it's all because the Prime Minister decided to go for that backstop way back in December 2017."

The DUP leader said that although Brexit was "incredibly important" to her, "it's not the most important issue".

"The most important issue for me, for the Democratic Unionist Party, for our 10 MPs, is the preservation of the union," she said.

The statement in full

"The DUP and the Government have had good discussions in recent days and some progress on domestic legislation has been made.

"All concerned recognise the need to ensure that as we leave the European Union the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom is maintained.

"However, given the fact that the necessary changes we seek to the backstop have not been secured between the Government and the European Union, and the remaining and ongoing strategic risk that Northern Ireland would be trapped in backstop arrangements at the end of the implementation period, we will not be supporting the Government if they table a fresh meaningful vote.

"The backstop if operational has the potential to create an internal trade border within the United Kingdom and would cut us off from our main internal market, being Great Britain.

"We want to secure the United Kingdom's departure from, and our future relationship with, the European Union on terms that accord with our key objectives to ensure the integrity of the United Kingdom.

"In our view the current withdrawal agreement does not do so and the backstop, which we warned this Government against from its first inception, poses an unacceptable threat to the integrity of the United Kingdom and will inevitably limit the United Kingdom's ability to negotiate on the type of future relationship with the EU."