Official indicates Brexit flexibility
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab signalled flexibility on one of the UK’s red lines in divorce negotiations with the EU saying there is scope for negotiation on a key issue.
Negotiators are deadlocked over fallback plans to prevent a hard border with Ireland after Brexit in the event that they fail to conclude a trade deal. They are trying to formulate a guarantee clause, or “backstop”, to include in the severance treaty. The UK wants that to be timelimited, while the EU has said it must be open-ended.
But Raab and one of his deputies, Suella Braverman, hinted on Sunday they could live with an alternative to a fixed date. “It could be time-limited, there could be another mechanism,” Raab told BBC TV’s Andrew Marr Show.
He “probably wouldn’t call it an ejector seat”, he said, “but I think there needs to be something which allows us to control how long we’re there for, to avoid any sense that we are left indefinitely in a sort of customs union limbo. That wouldn’t be acceptable.”
The remarks are the first signal of flexibility on the matter by Prime Minister Theresa May’s administration. Publicly she has maintained the backstop must be strictly time-limited. But on Friday, Bloomberg reported that her team is considering dropping that requirement in order to give impetus to talks with the EU, and Raab and Braverman’s comments on Sky News suggest it is under consideration.
“We need a date or a very clear mechanism or clause in this agreement which enables us to get out of it,” Braverman said. “We cannot sign up to anything which is in perpetuity, vague, and leaves us exposed to an indefinite membership of a customs union.”
French European affairs minister Nathalie Loiseau said that “the ball is in London’s court” over the backstop. She said the mechanism should not be made up of “temporary measures which disappear”.
Raab said that “on the vast range of other issues, we’re pretty close to getting there”, and that the remaining differences between UK and EU negotiators could be overcome “with goodwill and with a bit of oomph” on both sides. He also said he could envisage a three-month extension of a planned 21-month implementation period that is due to follow Brexit in March to serve as a “bridge” before a future trade deal comes in.
The impasse in Brussels and possible compromises risk enraging May’s Conservative Party. The most ardent Brexiteers are unhappy at concessions she has made.