UK ‘has just weeks to get Brexit deal with the EU’
Officials warn of tight deadline
EU OFFICIALS have warned Britain it only has three weeks to seal a deal or it will be too late for the gathering of 28 national leaders next month to approve it before Brexit day on March 29.
The warning came ahead of last night’s meeting between Mrs May and EU president Jean-Claude Juncker which she said she hoped would secure change to her Brexit deal, talks which were later described as ‘constructive’.
‘They have until March 10, March 15 at the latest, one EU diplomat said, stressing the bloc needed time to prepare approval at the leaders’ summit due March 21-22, the official said. ‘Otherwise, they will be forced into a delay of Brexit, or crash out’.
Another diplomat dealing with Brexit in Brussels said mid-March was an effective deadline. Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond indicated on Tuesday night that the UK government had accepted the EU will not agree to replace the backstop arrangements for the Irish border with technological alternatives in time for the scheduled date of Brexit on March 29.
But he said he hopes the technological solution contained in the so-called Malthouse Compromise will form part of negotiations over the following 21 months on the UK’s future relationship with the EU.
The warnings came as Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said the key to getting a deal approved by MPs was securing changes which would allow Attorney General Geoffrey Cox alter his legal advice that the UK could potentially be trapped in the backstop indefinitely.
Speaking in Berlin, Mr Hunt said: ‘I am confident, Theresa May is confident, the British government is confident, on the basis of huge numbers of discussions with UK Parliamentarians, that if we solve the issue of the backstop, then we can pass this deal through Parliament.’
The British government’s approach now appears to be set on securing legal guarantees about the temporary nature of the backstop measures which are aimed at preventing a hard border with Ireland.
Setting out what was required, Mr Hunt also played down the prospect of delaying Brexit by seeking an extension to Article 50. ‘The last thing that people in the UK and indeed the rest of the EU want is Brexit paralysis, with this issue hanging over Europe like a shadow,’ he said.
Meanwhile, after being briefed on developments in private talks with Mrs May, leading Brexiteers Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker appeared happy with this arrangement, declaring that the Malthouse proposals were ‘alive and kicking’.
Mr Baker said it was now possible that Brexiteers in the influential European Research Group, of which he is deputy chairman, would back Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement, after helping to vote it down by a massive margin last month.
The backstop arrangements would see the whole of the UK remain in a customs union with the EU and Northern Ireland following some single market rules until a wider trade deal is agreed, in order to prevent the need for checkpoints on the border.
The Malthouse plan would replace these arrangements with technological methods for tracking cross-border movements, along with a free trade agreement-lite for Northern Ireland.
If this was not acceptable to Brussels, a Plan B would see the UK leave without a deal but with a transition period extended to the end of 2021 to allow time to prepare.
Hard Brexit ERG group ‘happy’