Backstop won’t be withdrawn on the back of a promise, say EU leaders
Irish deputy PM tells UK wiping the slate clean has undone two years of work negotiating Brexit deal
IRELAND’S deputy prime minister has accused the British Government of “wiping the slate clean” regarding promises made over Brexit.
Simon Coveney was speaking at a gathering of business leaders in Paris after the Queen agreed to a request from Boris Johnson to suspend Parliament for five weeks.
The announcement was met with dismay by European politicians, with German and French parliamentarians accusing the Prime Minister of flouting parliamentary procedures to force through a no-deal Brexit.
However, Stephen Barclay, the Brexit Secretary, who was speaking at the same event as Mr Coveney, rejected those claims. He said: “The British Government are aiming for a deal. A deal that honours the Belfast Good Friday Agreement but without the backstop, as the UK Parliament has made clear.
“That is what our Government seeks and, with goodwill on all sides, it is what we can deliver.”
Mr Coveney, who is also the minister for foreign affairs, said that the Government’s stance was asking the EU to disregard the backstop on “the back of a promise”.
“We have a British Government who seems to be wiping the slate clean on the Irish issue,” he said.
“We must ensure that the commitments that took two years to negotiate, to deal with the complexity of those issues on the island of Ireland, are actually followed through on.
“Unfortunately, what we are hearing today from the British minister for Brexit is that Britain no longer seems to be committed to that approach, which we know solves the problem at hand, and instead wants everyone to move forward and agree on the basis of a promise that we would try to deal with these issues at some point in the future.
“We can’t give up on something that we know works on the back of a promise without any idea as to how it’s going to work.”
Guy Verhofstadt, a former prime minister of Belgium who is the European Parliament’s Brexit coordinator, warned that suspending Parliament could make it harder for the UK to get a trade deal in the future. He said on Twitter: “Suppressing debate on profound choices is unlikely to help deliver a stable future EU-UK relationship.
“‘Taking back control’ has never looked so sinister. As a fellow parliamentarian, my solidarity is with those fighting for their voices to be heard.”
Mr Verhofstadt heads the group of liberal MEPS, which includes 16 Liberal Democrat members.
However, in private, EU officials said suspending Parliament was a “massive poker move” that could help Mr Johnson get a revised Brexit deal through the House of Commons.
“If the game becomes ‘constrain the options of MPS so very much that they have to accept any deal’, then maybe that reduces the pressure on Johnson to get substantial changes to the deal, and a narrow pathway could be found with cosmetic changes,” the official said.
Another EU official said it was clear that the aim was to leave getting a deal “to the last possible moment”, referring to the final days of October before the UK was due to leave the bloc.
Other European politicians accused Mr Johnson of being undemocratic.
Norbert Röttgen, a German MP and close ally of Angela Merkel, tweeted: “Johnson argues that respect for democracy dictates implementing Brexit ‘do or die’ on October 31. As a fellow parliamentarian and democrat I wonder: how does respect for democracy go together with suspending Parliament?”
Mr Röttgen, a former minister in an earlier Merkel-led government, chairs the influential foreign affairs committee in the Bundestag, Germany’s lower house.
Nathalie Loiseau, the leader of French MEPS belonging to Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party, accused Mr Johnson of refusing MPS a chance to express themselves on Brexit before the UK left. She tweeted: “Not only is UK heading to a no-deal Brexit but it falls into a no-debate Brexit.”
Ms Loiseau, a former Europe minister under Mr Macron, added: “A decision made in the name of the people becomes a decision implemented away from its elected representatives.”
The announcement to suspend Parliament came as David Frost, Mr
‘We are aiming for a deal. A deal that honours the Good Friday Agreement but without the backstop’
Johnson’s main negotiator on Brexit, visited Brussels to meet senior EU officials working on the negotiations.
Mr Frost saw Clara Martinez Alberola, the chief of staff of Jean-claude Juncker, the European Commission president, and Stephanie Riso, the deputy to Michel Barnier, the EU’S chief Brexit negotiator. He also saw Piotr Serafin, the chief of staff to Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council.
EU officials said that Mr Frost had not outlined any new ideas to break the deadlock but added that they had not expected any new proposals at this stage. The meetings were about the two sides getting to know each other as Mr Frost had only visited Brussels once before, officials said.
One official commented that they expected the UK to present new ideas at a much later stage, towards the end of October before the UK is due to leave. A spokesman for the European Commission would not say what had been discussed at the meetings with Mr Frost.
She declined to comment on the implications of the announcement about suspending parliament on Brexit plans, saying that the Commission did not comment on “internal political procedures”.
The spokesman stressed that the EU’S central assumption was still that the UK would be leaving on Oct 31.
“That is the deadline we are working towards,” she said, adding that the EU’S “preferred scenario” was that the UK left with a deal rather than under a nodeal scenario.
The spokesman said that the earlier the UK presented any new proposals for Brexit “the better”.
She said that the Commission was not aware of a “30-day deadline”, referring to the cut-off date for new proposals Mrs Merkel mentioned in Berlin.