UK, EU ‘deadlocked’ in last-ditch talks
Eleventh-hour talks between the United Kingdom and the European Union aimed at finding a solution to the Brexit impasse ground to a halt on Sunday with the prime minister’s office saying they were “deadlocked”.
Negotiators had been seeking a fix for the so-called Irish backstop impasse ahead of a crucial vote in the British Parliament on Tuesday. If no transition deal is approved, the UK would crash out of the EU without a post-separation trading relationship, an outcome British business lobbyists say would be disastrous.
British Prime Minister Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of the European Commission, talked by phone on Sunday seeking a way forward but, as of Monday morning, a face-to-face meeting, during which they could sign off on a compromise deal solving the backstop issue, was on hold. The EU recalled its ambassadors on Monday morning to help work on the issue.
Both parties want to avoid a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland after the UK leaves the EU but cannot agree on how to do it. The old hard border was a flashpoint for paramilitary groups that battled over whether Northern Ireland should remain part of the UK or join independent Ireland.
The EU says a hard border can be avoided if UK remains a member of the EU customs union until a freetrade deal can be reached but many British MPs fear that would bind the UK to EU rules indefinitely. UK Attorney General Geoffrey Cox has confirmed this interpretation in official legal advice.
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, a prominent proponent of the UK exiting the EU, wrote in the Daily Telegraph on Monday that there is “no way” he will support May’s exit deal without a solution to the Irish backstop issue.
“The UK will have less sovereign power to withdraw from the backstop than it has to leave the EU itself,” he wrote. “It is quite a bewildering state of affairs.”
And the BBC quoted Mark Francois, another prominent Brexit supporter, as saying MPs will defeat May’s proposed deal on Tuesday, unless “something amazing” materializes in talks on Monday.
The Guardian newspaper added that senior members of the ruling Conservative Party were so worried about May suffering another heavy defeat, and possibly a leadership challenge, that they want her to postpone the vote.
If May goes ahead with Tuesday’s vote and loses, MPs are likely to ask the EU for an extension to the March 29 deadline by which the UK is scheduled to leave the EU.
The Bank of England, meanwhile, has told UK lenders to triple their holdings of easy-to-sell assets so they will be better equipped to deal with turbulence in the financial sector if the UK crashes out of the EU without a separation deal.