May forced to deny ditching no-deal Brexit

EUROSCEPTIC TORIES have demanded fresh assurances from Number 10 that a no-deal Brexit is still on the table, ahead of a Commons showdown today.

Conservative Brexiteers have threatened to vote against the Government on a motion tabled by Prime Minister Theresa May, claiming it would commit her to avoiding EU withdrawal without a deal. The looming rebellion forced Mrs May to deny that her no-deal policy had changed in a last-ditch bid to win their backing.

The motion asks the House to reiterate its support for Mrs May to go back to Brussels to renegotiate the Irish backstop.

But members of the backbench European Research Group claimed it endorsed another amendment approved by MPs on the same day, which rules out no deal. Leading ERG member Mark Francois told the BBC: “We cannot vote for this as it is currently configured because it rules out no deal.” Mrs May’s official spokesman later told reporters: “Does no deal remain on the table? The answer is yes.”

This comes after reports emerged that negotiator Olly Robbins was overheard in a Brussels bar saying Mrs May planned to wait until the end of March before confronting MPs with a choice between her deal or a lengthy delay to Brexit. Robbins was overheard saying: “In the end they [Brussels] will probably just give us an extension.”

Eurosceptics reacted angrily, with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage calling for him to be sacked for “treachery”.

BREXIT HAS “raised tensions” on the island of Ireland and “complicated” progress towards a lasting peace, one of the authors of the Good Friday Agreement has told MPs.

The former premier of the Republic of Ireland, Bertie Ahern, said people were worried that a no-deal UK withdrawal from the EU would be the start of a “slippery slope” to a hard border, with checkpoints and troops.

He also said the UK’s 2016 vote to leave the EU was the reason why the Northern Irish institutions created by the GFA remain suspended after more than two years.

Speaking in front of the Commons Brexit Committee he said: “Most people remember the border and remember sitting in long queues.

“They fear that any infrastructure at the border equals trouble, disagreement, Army, soldiers, police.

“Some of it might be exaggerated but there is that fear of the slippery slope.

“It is something that really worries people.”

He added that Brexit “has raised tensions again, it has brought back a lot of the rhetoric of the past, it’s brought back a lot of the issues of the past.”

“It’s my view that if it wasn’t for Brexit, the institutions in Northern Ireland would have been up and running a year ago. Brexit has stopped that.

“It wasn’t the reason that brought them down but it is the reason they are not back up.”

Asked whether it was helpful for current Taioseach Leo Varadkar to talk about sending troops to the border in the case of a nodeal Brexit, Mr Ahern replied: “Rhetoric from anybody at any time isn’t helpful.” He also denounced as “irresponsible” suggestions that Brexit should lead to an early poll on Irish reunification.

He said this should wait until new arrangements have had time to bed in and the institutions are restored.