Johnson ‘burning the house down for everyone’ if he ditches May’s Brexit deal
Deputy Irish PM rules out renegotiation of agreement
Ireland’s deputy prime minister has warned Boris Johnson he will be “in trouble” if he enters No 10 vowing to rip up the existing Brexit deal.
Simon Coveney categorically ruled out any renegotiation of Theresa May’s failed divorce agreement,
regardless of the UK choosing a new prime minister with a hardline approach.
“If the approach is going to be to tear up the withdrawal agreement then I think we are in trouble – we are all in trouble,” Mr Coveney said.
He warned Mr Johnson, the near-certain next prime minister and Conservative leader, not to threaten the European Union with a no-deal Brexit, which he branded a “give me what I want or I’m going to burn the house down for everybody” stance.
Mr Johnson, and his rival Jeremy Hunt, has insisted the Irish backstop must be stripped out of the divorce deal if it is to pass the Commons and a crash-out Brexit avoided.
But, speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme, Mr Coveney said it would be the UK forcing a nodeal Brexit on everybody else, if it happened.
“We want to resolve these issues, but we won’t do it by being told what must happen to get it through the House of Commons. A new prime minister does not change this,” he vowed.
Mr Coveney also said the Irish government would, if forced, introduce checks on goods to protect the EU single market, but away from the border with Northern Ireland.
The Liberal Democrats said the comments showed the Irish deputy prime minister was reminding the Conservative Party of the realities of Brexit.
“There will be no changes to the backstop,” said Tom Brake, the party’s Brexit spokesperson. “The Conservatives must not be allowed to waste any more time to push the country ever closer to no-deal Brexit.”
Mr Coveney stressed that a solution to avoid the backstop could be found in post-Brexit discussions about the future economic relationship.
But he vowed: “We’re simply not going to move away from the withdrawal agreement.” And he insisted he had the support of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor.
On checks on goods, he said: “We have to protect relationships and peace on the island of Ireland, and we are not going to create a security risk by putting a border in place.
“We also have to make sure that there are verification mechanisms to ensure the EU knows what is coming into its single market. There will need to be checks somewhere. We are working out with the European Commission how that will work.”
Even a study hailed by Mr Johnson as the solution to avoid the need for the backstop has concluded he is wrong and that a reworked version of the divorce deal is needed.
Warning a full solution is up to three years away, the report recommended writing an additional protocol into the existing withdrawal agreement to make clear the backstop would never come into effect.