Politics

BREXIT BOTTLE JOB: May infuriates Brexiteers as EU gets its way – ‘JUST FLOWERY WORDS!’


Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay took details of “Plan C”, drawn up by Brexiteers and Remainers, to talks with his counterpart in Brussels. But the call for “alternative arrangements” to a backstop preventing a hard Irish border was sidelined in favour of legal assurances. Mr Barclay and Attorney-General Geoffrey Cox will return to Brussels on Wednesday to present EU officials with a “legal way forward”.

Mr Cox will aim to secure a fresh legal text that allows him to reverse his November warning Britain could be locked in the custom union backstop by the EU.

After a “positive” two-hour meeting with Brussels negotiator Michel Barnier, Mr Barclay said the Government now wants a document that sets out the temporary nature of the backstop.

He said: “The Attorney-General shared his thinking in terms of the legal way forward and how we address the central issue of concern in terms of the indefinite nature of the backstop.

“We agreed a next step forward so the Attorney-General and I will be engaging again midweek.”

Tory Brexiteer Sir John Redwood said it was not possible to “gloss” the divorce deal.

He said: “It needs significant changes, I’m not saying a little change would be sufficient, it requires a renegotiation.”

An alternative plan for the backstop that would use technology to ensure there is no hard border was put forward by Tory Remainers and Brexiteers and has been worked on by government officials.

They believe it is the only solution and have warned they will reject a legal fudge.

Sir Bill Cash, Conservative chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, said, if the changes were just “flowery words”, then the deal “won’t wash”.

Ireland’s deputy premier Simon Coveney said Dublin would not be “steamrolled” into making compromises on the backstop.

He said: “There is a deal on the table. The British Government signed up to it.

“They haven’t been able to sell that to their own parliament.

“And I accept that has created a lot of uncertainty, but it is certainly not Ireland’s fault.

“The responsibility to resolve this problem in terms of the way forward needs to lie where the problem is, which is in London not Dublin.

“We would be very foolish if we allowed the onus to solve that problem to switch away from Westminster to Dublin.”

The backstop, which would keep the UK in a customs union with the EU, would come into force if a wider trade deal has not been struck by the end of the transition period.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt called on the EU to show “trust and vision” as he met counterparts in the Belgian capital and warned the process was at a “critical period”.

Mrs May is expected to head to Brussels later this week to meet European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker and will continue speaking to other leaders in the bloc in the coming days.

But Number 10 insiders acknowledged it was “hard to judge” what progress would be made this week.

Mr Juncker said Brexit could be delayed.

“When it comes to Brexit, it is like being before the courts or on the high seas; we are in God’s hands. And we can never quite be sure when God will take the matter in hand,” he told a German newspaper.

“If you are asking for how long the withdrawal can be postponed, I have no timeframe in mind. With Brexit so many timetables have already gone by the wayside.”

“But I find it hard to imagine that British voters would again vote in the European elections. That to my mind would be an irony of history. Yet I cannot rule it out.”



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