‘It’s time to match our compromises’

EUROPEAN leaders have been urged by the UK to compromise on their Brexit stance on the eve of a major summit.

Prime Minister Theresa May will use today’s gathering in Salzburg, Austria, to make a direct pitch to fellow leaders to back her divisive Chequers proposals.

Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said it was time for the “compromises” made by the UK to be “matched on the EU side”.

In a sign that Brexit talks could go to the wire, the European Union is preparing for a final deal to be struck at an emergency summit in November, rather than the scheduled October meeting previously targeted by both sides in the negotiations.

The deal has to be finalised well in advance of the UK’s March 29 2019 exit from the bloc so the parliaments in Westminster and Strasbourg can sign off on the agreement.

In Brussels, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier was briefing ministers from EU governments yesterday on remaining issues in the divorce talks, including the Irish border, as well as the framework for the UK’s future relationship with the EU.

Arriving at the Brussels meeting, Brexit minister Lord Callanan said: “If we are to get a deal there has to be compromises from both sides and we look forward to seeing what the EU side has to say about this.”

The message echoed that from Mr Raab, who set out the UK’s position in an interview with journalists from newspapers across the EU.

Setting out the UK’s hopes, Mr Raab said the Salzburg meeting at which Mrs May is expected to briefly set out her position over dinner on Wednesday night before her 27 counterparts consider the situation in her absence on Thursday, would be “an important milestone” and “a stepping stone” to a deal.

But he made clear the UK was looking for further movement from the EU on the Irish border. He branded Mr Barnier’s “backstop” proposals, which would see Northern Ireland remain in the EU customs area, unworkable, because they would create a border in the Irish Sea and fail to respect the constitutional integrity of the UK.

“What I’m not going to do is to say that I would refuse to entertain any further proposals that the EU comes up with but they’ve got to be respecting the equities that we’ve set out,” he told correspondents from European newspapers including Germany’s Die Welt, France’s Le Monde and the Irish Times.

Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar played down the prospect of Salzburg producing any shift in the EU’s negotiating stance.

Mr Varadkar told the Dail parliament in Dublin: “I do not anticipate there will be any change to the EU’s position or any change to our negotiating guidelines.”

In a Panorama interview on Monday, Mrs May framed the decision facing the country as a choice between her deal or no deal.

But with large numbers of Tory hard Brexiteers openly rejecting the Chequers plan, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable said the scene was set for a second referendum.

Sir Vince told BBC Radio 4’s Today: “I think growing numbers of people – we are already seeing it from senior Labour people and a few Conservatives – will say that the only way forward is to take this back to the public and say: ‘Do you accept what Theresa May has negotiated or would you rather stay in the European Union?”’