Prospect of a new Brexit deal
Boris Johnson was yesterday given 30 days to come up with a solution to the Northern Irish backstop and forge a new Brexit deal with the European Union.
Angela Merkel suggested she would be willing to ditch the controversial backstop if the UK can agree a suitable alternative by September 20.
Boris Johnson said he was ‘‘more than happy’’ with the German Chancellor’s suggestion and said Brexit talks ‘‘can finally begin’’.
Merkel’s comments were seen as a victory for Johnson on his first trip abroad as prime minister, ahead of a meeting with Emmanuel Macron today and the G7 summit this weekend.
The prospect of reaching a deal could also help Johnson to fend off Tory rebels who are against no deal should Jeremy Corbyn call a no confidence vote in early September.
Johnson described Merkel’s timetable for reaching a solution to the backstop as ‘‘blistering’’ but welcomed the proposal and said the ‘‘onus is on us’’ to produce solutions for the Irish border. He said that he was confident of being able to come up with a new solution and that, under the previous government led by Theresa May, solutions had not been ‘‘very actively proposed’’.
He said: ‘‘Clearly we cannot accept the current Withdrawal Agreement, arrangements that either divide the UK or lock us into the regulatory and trading arrangements of the EU, the legal order of the EU, without the UK having any say on those matters. So we do need that backstop removed. But if we can do that then I am absolutely certain that we can move forward together.’’
In a letter this week to Donald Tusk, the European Council President, Johnson said he is prepared to leave the EU without a deal unless the ‘‘anti-democratic’’ backstop was removed from the Withdrawal Agreement.
Speaking at a press conference in Berlin Merkel said the backstop had always been a ‘‘fallback position’’ and would only come into effect if no other solution could be agreed that would protect the ‘‘integrity of the single market’’. The German Chancellor said: ‘‘If one is able to solve this conundrum, if one finds this solution, we said we would probably find it in the next two years to come but we can also maybe find it in the next 30 days to come. Then we are one step further in the right direction and we have to obviously put our all into this.’’
Merkel said she expected the UK to present its ideas for a new Brexit deal.
‘‘Britain should tell us what sort of ideas it has, because it is not the core task of a German chancellor to understand the relationship between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland so well,’’ she said. ‘‘As you will know much better about all the ramifications of the Good Friday Agreement.
‘‘We would like to hear first proposals put on the table by Britain. We have shown imagination and creativity in the past as the EU, I think here too we can find ways and means.’’