Brexit talks put on hold as stalemate deepens
LONDON/DUBLIN: British Prime Minister Theresa May faced growing pressure on Monday to rethink her plan for leaving the European Union after Brexit talks reached a stand-off at the weekend over the so-called Irish backstop.
Less than six months before Britain leaves the bloc and before May heads on Wednesday to Brussels for a summit when both sides still hope to make progress, the Brexit talks were paused on Sunday after the two sides failed to agree on how to deal with the United Kingdom’s only land border with the EU.
May was to make a statement to Parliament on Monday after the weekend talks stumbled over how to prevent the return of a hard border between the British province of Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland when Britain leaves in its biggest shift in policy for more than 40 years.
May, who has said repeatedly that she could not countenance the breakup of the United Kingdom, is struggling to find a way to satisfy the demands of not only the EU, but of her Conservative Party and her partners in Parliament, Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP).
There has been little success in narrowing that gap, and Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said any deal would now “take a bit more time than many people had hoped”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she had been “very hopeful” that a deal on Britain’s exit could be achieved but “at the moment it actually looks a bit more difficult”.
But a spokesman for May held out hope, saying there were “a number of means of achieving what we want to achieve” on the backstop.
He declined to give details and repeated Britain’s view that any such arrangement would be time-limited.
“We need to be able to look the British people in the eye and say the backstop is a temporary solution,” he said. “We are not going to be stuck permanently in a single customs territory unable to do meaningful trade deals.”
Meanwhile, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar played down expectations of a Brexit deal being reached at this week’s summit, saying an agreement was more likely in November or December. “I know some people are optimistic about an agreement on the withdrawal agreement protocol this week. I have to say I always thought that was unlikely,” he said.
“I figure November, December is probably the best opportunity for a deal, but this is a dynamic situation.”
Varadkar will travel to Brussels for the summit taking place on Wednesday and Thursday, where UK and EU officials had hoped to lay out details of the Brexit withdrawal plan.