EU chief Michel Barnier tonight unveiled an ‘offer’ to the UK on Brexit just four days before a crucial vote.
The Brussels chief negotiator took the unprecedented step of publicly tweeting his plan for a compromise on the Irish backstop.
Theresa May has for weeks being trying to rework the backstop – a clause in the 585-page Brexit deal that could trap the UK under EU customs rules.
She wanted either a way to quit the backstop, a time limit, or “alternative arrangements” to replace it.
Tonight Mr Barnier said the EU would commit to letting the UK exit the backstop – but only one part of it, a shared customs union with the EU.
That means the other provisions would have to stay – a move critics say will divide Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK.
Furious Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay hit back on Twitter within minutes, tweeting: “With a very real deadline looming, now is not the time to rerun old arguments.
“The UK has put forward clear new proposals. We now need to agree a balanced solution that can work for both sides.”
(Image: PA)
A DUP source tonight said they would not back any deal which saw a customs border established in the Irish Sea.
“We’ve been clear from the very start, anything which would see Northern Ireland treated separately from the UK will not get our support and we will be reiterating that to the PM”
A Tory Brexiteer told the Financial Times: “Do they think we are stupid?”
Tory MP Paul Masterson tweeted: “An exclusively NI backstop would be far more unacceptable.
“Round in circles we go.
(Image: Getty Images)
“And it’s something the current draft enables anyway (which the UK Govt has rejected doing).
“So we now have the EU presenting old solutions it knows we won’t accept, which is exactly what it’s been criticising UK for doing.”
Asked if they had any reaction to the EU’s offer, a Brexiteer source said: “Not really. They’re laughable. We laugh at them.”
Mr Barnier issued the ultimatum as he slammed the “blame game” just hours after Theresa May appeared to blame the EU in a major speech.
Mrs May urged EU leaders to make “just one more push” and her Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt warned them not to inject “poison” into the UK-EU relationship.
But Mr Barnier told reporters in Brussels: “The EU stands united. We are not interested in the blame game.
“We are still working.”
It came as Theresa May attempted to pin the blame for the Brexit chaos on the EU, Jeremy Corbyn and anyone else except herself.
The Prime Minister warned wavering MPs the UK could stay in the EU if they rejected her deal again on Tuesday.
She told workers in Grimsby: “If MPs reject the deal, nothing is certain. It would be at a moment of crisis.
“MPs would immediately be faced with another choice – either we leave the EU with no deal on March 29 or we delay Brexit and carry on arguing about it.”
But despite warning that no-deal would fire consequences she refused to say she would whip her MPs to vote against it if her deal fails to pass.
Despite weeks of heated negotiations Mrs May did not reveal any substantial changes to the Irish backstop.
Speaking directly to EU leaders she urged hem to back the changes she needs to appease the DUP and her own back bench MPs.
“My message to them is: now is the moment for us to act,” she said.
Instead I’m the face of a second historic defeat she said attempted to pay the blame the deal’s likely failure on Jeremy Corbyn.
She said that the Labour leader was “not really interested in finding a solution” – instead accusing him of trying to stop Brexit happening.
She added: “I have repeatedly offered him another meeting to follow it up.
“In return, after multiple requests from my office, he has offered just one hour over the last five weeks when our teams could meet.
“And we now know why.
“Because despite his promise at the last election to deliver Brexit, he now supports holding a divisive second referendum that would take the UK right back to square one.
“If we go down that road, we might never leave the EU at all.”
