Brexit countdown ticks on amid ‘backstop backsliding’
IF COMMITTED to paper, the unanswered questions about our world after Brexit could provide wallpaper for a terrace of houses. So, let’s look at the few things we do know and try to work from there.
We’re just a fortnight shy of a full two years since the UK voters opted, on June 23, 2016, to leave the European Union. And the one thing we are truly sure of is that time is in very short supply to shape the undoing of 45 years of British EU membership.
In precisely 293 days from today, on March 29, 2019, Brexit will become a political reality. But the timeframe to put agreements in place is even shorter: a final exit deal is required by October and it must ideally be accompanied by an outline agreement on the shape of post-Brexit EU-UK relations
The lamentable carry-on at the London parliament over the past week has dealt another blow to the already faint hope of good progress on several key issues, including the Northern Ireland Border, at an EU leaders’ summit on June 28 and 29.
There is still a slim chance that the beleaguered British Prime Minister, Theresa May, could emerge strengthened from a series of votes at Westminster later this coming week.
That unlikely outcome might allow her to out-fox her “uber-Brexiteer” ministers such as Boris Johnson.
It would allow for some progress at that leaders’ summit on Friday fortnight in Brussels. But it is more likely that the bigger focus will, as many have feared, switch to the following EU leaders’ summit on October 18 and 19.
EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier has long ago targeted this date to complete the so-called ‘Withdrawal Agreement’ between London and Brussels, so that everything could be ratified by the European Parliament and by the British parliament in spring of next year.
But the trouble is that any way one turns for signs of hope that these timeframes can be met, things always revert to a deeply divided government in London. On Thursday we got the longawaited British response to the EU’s so-called “backstop” proposal on the Irish Border.
The “backstop” was agreed in principle last December, then repudiated by Mrs May when details emerged in February, and later rather unconvincingly committed to again by London. As the name implies, it’s a default plan which, in the absence of anything better, would avoid a ‘hard Border’ after Brexit.
It would do this by allowing the tariff and product standard regime in the North to mimic the EU regime still in force in the Republic. It effectively would keep the North inside the EU customs union and close to the single market. That drove the Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up Mrs May’s minority government, utterly crazy.
So, Mrs May’s new plan was a “backstop writ large” which would provisionally keep the entire UK inside the customs union for a “temporary period”, likely be until the end of 2021.
There was no reference in the short UK government document to product standards which are covered by the EU single market rules.
It was clearly a rather poor fudge cake from a still riven May cabinet. In Dublin, the Government tried to put best foot forward, welcoming the document but making it clear that far more was required. In Brussels there were rather negative initial soundings.
And the already tentative atmosphere was further disturbed by more noises from that great old reliable “foot-in-mouth merchant”
Boris Johnson, who is the UK foreign to minister. In a leaked speech, he claimed that the need for Irish Border solutions was exaggerated, and the volumes of Border trade were so small “the tail was wagging the dog”.
Here was further unneeded proof of Mrs May’s team divisions. Still the Taoiseach bit his lip, correctly reflecting that the extent of Mr Johnson’s knowledge can be judged by Border comparisons with London borough boundaries in an extraordinary statement last February.
Mr Varadkar, already on a sensitive but well-received visit to Belfast, confined himself to saying he hoped for more detail from London. He stressed he was dealing with Prime Minister May – not the foreign minister.
But the bad news came this time directly from Brussels. Mr Barnier said the backstop arrangements were specific to the Irish Border and could not apply across the rest of the UK.
The EU chief negotiator also rejected the idea of making a time-limited or temporary deal as proposed by Mrs May.
He pointed to other complications and also robustly expressed his frustration at what many in Brussels feel is a footdragging approach to talks by London.
So, another week of “backstop backsliding” ends and time is in shorter supply. We know little else.