Coveney: Brexit deal on the cards
HOPES of a breakthrough in Brexit talks continued to rise as Ireland said the chances of a deal were good.
As the upbeat mood in the EU increased, hardline Tory Brexiteers softened their stance in order to try and get Prime Minister Theresa May to abandon her Chequers proposals in favour of a Canada-style free trade deal.
Following on from positive remarks from European Council president Donald Tusk that an agreement could be reached within weeks, Ireland’s deputy prime minister Simon Coveney talked up the chances of an accord.
He told Sky News: “The withdrawal treaty is already about 90% agreed in terms of text, the issues that have not been signed off yet relate predominantly to Ireland and what is needed now is the two negotiating teams need to lock themselves in a room for the next 10 days or so.”
Mr Coveney said the chances of a deal being cut were “good” ahead of a crunch EU summit on October 17.
The comments came as prominent antiEU campaigners like Tory former leader Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg
told the Sunday Telegraph they are ready to compromise in order to achieve a free trade deal with Brussels, rather than the closer relationship set out by Mrs May.
Such a move would see them back proposals allowing EU officials to be stationed at UK ports after Brexit, and support the Government enforcing EU rules on goods exported to the bloc from UK firms, the newspaper said.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Duncan Smith said allowing EU officials at UK ports, as happens now with Eurotunnel, would answer concerns about the Irish border. He wrote: “We can... (conduct) regulatory and customs checks together in a way that respects the EU’s single market, by building on systems already in place at the Channel Ports.
“The UK has long had arrangements with France under the Le Touquet Treaty where passports are checked by French officers at Dover and UK officers in Calais. The UK should seek to build on this.
“Any customs or regulatory checks could be made at juxtaposed controls with information-sharing and cooperation between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
“This would not simply answer concerns about keeping the Northern Ireland border open, it would also ensure the channel ports continue to provide as frictionless trade as possible.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of dogs and their owners have marched through central London as part of the “Wooferendum Dog March” to call for a people’s vote on Brexit.
Actor Peter Egan and MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy were among those who spoke at the rally, which ended in Parliament Square.
Mr Egan, who has five rescue dogs, said: “I think all the attention that can be brought to the question of Brexit, whether it’s light hearted like today, the better.”