We’ll extend transition if you jettison backstop, UK tells Europe
THE UK has said it will only relent to extending the Brexit transition period if the demand for the Irish ‘backstop’ is dropped.
The backstop — essentially an insurance policy to prevent the emergence of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic — has become a final sticking point in the Brexit negotiations.
Brexit Minister Dominic Raab said any extension to the transition period would only be considered as an alternative to the backstop.
“We must have a finality to any backstop, whether through a time limit or a mechanism that enables the UK to leave,” he wrote in The Sunday Telegraph.
Mr Raab later said the exit agreement must be finalised by the end of next month to allow new laws to be put in place in time for exit day.
He suggested a transition extension could run for three months, but said the move would have to “solve” the Irish backstop issue.
Irish European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee accused Mr Raab of attempting to introduce “new red lines”.
The commitment to a backstop has been given repeatedly by the UK, Ms McEntee said.
“To have essentially a new red line introduced saying that ‘we won’t move forward if the backstop is there or if it doesn’t have a time limit to it’, that’s really not how negotiations work,” she told RTE Radio One.
Negotiators in Europe are looking at the idea of a UK-wide customs “shared space” as a means to break the stalemate in talks. The idea is being proposed in addition to the backstop however, rather than a replacement for it.
A spokesperson for Tanaiste Simon Coveney said the progress needed to get a deal across the line would not be achieved in the media. “What we need now is for the negotiators to get back to work in Brussels and finish the final 10% of the withdrawal agreement,” he said.
“Ireland wants a close future trading deal with the UK but at this point the commitments already made need to be honoured.”
Meanwhile, Theresa May (right) will today insist the Brexit deal is 95% complete as she faces
MPs after a weekend of vicious attacks from within her own ranks. In a Commons statement following talks with EU leaders in Brussels the Prime Minister will say the “shape of the deal across the vast majority” of the withdrawal agreement is now clear.
She will tell MPs that since last month’s fractious summit in Salzburg “important progress” has been made on issues like security, transport and services.
Protocols have been developed on how Brexit will impact Gibraltar and the UK’s military base in Cyprus.
“And all of this from the last three weeks alone is in addition to the agreements we had already reached,” she will say.
Mrs May will tell the Commons that “taking all of this together, 95% of the withdrawal agreement and its protocols are now settled”.
But she will add: “As I set out last week, the original backstop proposal from the EU was one we could not accept, as it would mean creating a customs border down the Irish Sea and breaking up the integrity of the UK. I do not believe that any UK Prime Minister could ever accept this. And I certainly will not.” Furious backbenchers warned the Prime Minister she is “drinking in the last chance saloon” after tensions flared over her negotiating strategy following a Brussels summit.
Senior Brexiteer Theresa Villiers criticised “disturbing” anonymous briefings to Sunday newspapers, including claims the PM was entering the “killing zone”.
But Brexit Minister Suella Braverman said her colleagues were “free to express themselves in the way they wish” and repeatedly refused to say she would back Mrs May in a confidence vote.
Labour, meanwhile, has warned Mrs May it will not back her Brexit blueprint when it reaches the Commons.
Shadow Brexit secretary Sir Keir Starmer said there is a “real lack of confidence” that Mrs May can bring back “anything by way of a good deal”.
Elsewhere, former Brexit Minister Steve Baker is attempting to block the backstop with changes to legislation being heard by Parliament.
His proposed amendments to the Northern Ireland (Executive Formation and Exercise of Functions) Bill would make it a legal requirement for the Stormont Assembly to agree to any plan to treat Northern Ireland differently to the rest of the UK. The Bill is due to go before the House of Commons on Wednesday.