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Donald Tusk has sent a damning response after Boris Johnson pleaded for the Irish border backstop to be scrapped.
The European Council president said: “Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support reestablishing a border.”
He said this was the case “even if they do not admit it” as he called the backstop “an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found”.
Mr Johnson sent a four-page letter to Mr Tusk last night saying the backstop must be ditched in its entirety because it was “anti-democratic” and would endanger the peace process in Northern Ireland.
The brinkmanship comes ahead of the Prime Minister’s first meetings with EU leaders, starting with talks in Berlin with Angela Merkel tomorrow afternoon, then with French president Emmanuel Macron on Thursday.
The PM called the backstop “anti-democratic” as he called for its removal and urged the EU to reconsider it.
“Time is very short. But the UK is ready to move quickly, and, given the degree of common ground already, I hope that the EU will be ready to do likewise,” he wrote.
“I am equally confident that our Parliament would be able to act rapidly if we were able to reach a satisfactory agreement which did not contain the ‘backstop’: indeed it has already demonstrated that there is a majority for an agreement on these lines.
More follows…
