Brussels, DUP and Tory rebels sceptical of ‘deal’
IT will be ‘very difficult’ to reach a new Brexit deal by the October 31 deadline, the EU’s chief negotiator warned last night.
Michel Barnier told ambassadors that Britain’s ‘backstop alternative’ is still not acceptable – despite concessions from British prime minister Boris Johnson.
UK and Brussels negotiators locked themselves away in the EU Commission’s headquarters over the weekend to hammer out a compromise in time for a crunch summit on Thursday.
The urgent talks came after Mr Johnson’s fresh proposals on how to solve the Northern Ireland border issue were given a warm reception by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar last week.
But Mr Barnier said there had not been ‘as much progress’ as hoped during a briefing last night to update member states.
He said Britain had failed to provide enough detail on the issue of customs, which has dogged talks surrounding the backstop, designed to prevent a hard border on this island.
Mr Barnier stopped short of calling off the talks, which will continue today and tomorrow.
But his bleak assessment dampened hopes of an imminent breakthrough.
One senior EU diplomat said: ‘It’s a kind of Groundhog Day that continues tomorrow on customs.’
Another added: ‘It’ll be difficult to have a legal text ready for the summit, but still not impossible if there’s some movement.’
Meanwhile Mr Johnson told his senior team there was a ‘good way forward’ as he updated them on progress in a conference call.
He said the package being sketched out could ‘secure all our interests’ and get rid of the backstop while honouring the Good Friday Agreement, but he cautioned there was no guarantee of success, and his government had to keep preparing to leave by his ‘do or die’ October 31 deadline.
The sides are now in intensive negotiations on a new ‘best of both worlds’ blueprint, thought to involve the North technically staying within the UK’s customs union – but with Britain collecting tariffs on the EU’s behalf.
It should become clear by tomorrow whether an agreement is possible – and it could be finalised at a crucial summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.
However, even if those hurdles are overcome, it is unclear whether Mr Johnson will be able to hold together his fragile political coalition to get a package through the House of Commons in a special ‘Super Saturday’ sitting.
The DUP fired a warning shot last night that a dual status arrangement ‘cannot work’ and that the North ‘must stay in a full UK customs union’.
A Downing Street spokesman said yesterday afternoon: ‘The prime minister . . . [reiterated] that a pathway to a deal could be seen but that there is still a significant amount of work to get there – and we must remain prepared to leave on October 31.’
Earlier, a senior British government source said the next couple of days would be critical.
‘He’ll be talking to Merkel, Macron and Juncker by the end of [today] to see if there’s agreement on a “landing zone” for Northern Ireland and customs,’ they told the Sunday Times. ‘The message is, “Let’s finish this off”.
‘The alternative is to agree a friendly version of No Deal and finish it that way.’
In a sign of Downing Street’s nervousness about the prospect of a revolt by Tory hardliners, the leading Brexiteer and House of Commons leader Jacob Rees-Mogg has been deployed to warn that there will need to be compromises.
Mr Rees-Mogg, who was a thorn in the side of former Tory leader and prime minister Theresa May over Brexit before joining Mr Johnson’s administration, said the prime minister had dedicated his political career to EU withdrawal.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Rees-Mogg said: ‘In the final stages of the Brexit negotiation, compromise will inevitably be needed, something even the staunchest Leavers recognise albeit unwillingly – but as a Leaver, Boris can be trusted.’
DUP deputy leader Nigel Dodds has already warned that the mooted plan ‘cannot work’.
The scheme, intended to avoid the need for customs controls on this island, would see the North remain politically in a customs union with the EU but it would be administered by the UK.
However, Mr Dodds told the Italian La Repubblica newspaper that the North ‘must stay in a full UK customs union, full stop’.
‘It cannot work because Northern Ireland has to remain fully part of the UK customs union,’ he said, adding: ‘Northern Ireland must remain fully part of the UK customs union. And Boris Johnson knows it very well.’
If speculation is correct, this scenario would create a customs border in the Irish Sea with goods travelling from Britain to the North being subject to tariffs which Britain would collect on behalf of the EU.
Businesses would then be able to claim a rebate once they had shown the goods were for consumption in the UK market.
However, the North would be able to benefit from any post-Brexit trade deals the UK struck with other countries.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron met for dinner in France last night, in what could be a key indication of the prospects of success.
‘It’s a kind of Groundhog Day’ Rees-Mogg in call to ‘trust Johnson’