THERE’S NO GOING BACK
PM won’t ditch Brexit’s irish border ‘insurance policy’
THERESA May yesterday vowed to stand by the controversial Brexit backstop as she tries to revive her withdrawal deal.
The PM is under mounting pressure to either scrap the backstop, find a way the UK can leave it without EU approval, or secure a deadline by which it will end.
She flies to Brussels tomorrow for crisis talks with EU chiefs as she bids to overhaul the agreement so she can force it through Parliament. Last week, MPS agreed to back the pact if she can win changes to the backstop.
Yesterday, on a visit to Belfast, Mrs May vowed to enforce the backstop, aimed at avoiding a hard border if there is no deal, putting her at odds with hardline Tory Brexiteers.
Mrs May said: “I’m not proposing to persuade people to accept a deal that doesn’t contain that insurance policy for the future. The issue that... Parliament has raised is the potential indefinite nature of the backstop. That’s the issue we look to address.”
Reporters told the PM that Northern Irish businesses feel “betrayed and shafted” over the backstop. Firms fear she will U-turn on pledges that the measure will stop checks and infrastructure along the border.
But Mrs May said: “If the future relationship is not in place by the end of the implementation period, there will be arrangements to ensure that we deliver no hard border.”
Mrs May is expected to face more Commons votes on February 14 unless she has a reworked plan to put before Parliament. She will skip PMQS today to hold talks with the DUP and Sinn Fein at Stormont. The DUP wants the PM to ditch the backstop. But the EU insists there will be no deal without one. Sinn Fein accused Mrs May of serving up only “platitudes and promises” on Brexit.
Deputy leader Michelle O’neill said the PM failed to outline any alternative to the backstop in her Belfast address. She added: “I heard no evidence, I heard no commitment, I heard no suggestion, no proposal, anything that would deliver no hard border on this island. We know the only way to do that is the issue of the backstop, the backstop which Theresa May and her government negotiated with the EU. That is the only way in which we could avoid a hard border.”
She is going through the motions to try to force her deal through
GUTO BEBB ON THE PM’S TALKS WITH EU