Brexit talks 'deadlocked', says Downing Street
Downing Street has described the Brexit talks in Brussels as “deadlocked” after negotiations over the weekend failed to find a breakthrough on the Irish backstop.
Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, spoke on the telephone on Sunday evening to “take stock”, but plans for the prime minister to visit the Belgian capital to sign off on any compromise are on hold.
“No further meetings at a political level are scheduled but both sides will remain in close contact this week”, a commission spokesman added on Monday. “The commission has made proposals on further assurances that the backstop, if used, will apply temporarily… It is now for the House of commons to make an important set of decisions this week”.
The EU refuses to budge on the British proposal for what it believes is an attempt to build a unilateral exit mechanism into the Irish backstop, the arrangement that would keep the UK in a customs union to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.
The attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, is unlikely without such a concession to revise his legal opinion, given before the last vote on May’s deal, that the backstop could be in force “indefinitely”.
The prime minister pledged in parliament to put her deal to the Commons on Tuesday but she is being urged by senior Conservative MPs to pull the vote if she fails to secure significant concessions from Brussels.
Leading Tories have warned Downing Street it could face a second huge defeat similar to the historic 230-vote loss in January if the government goes ahead.
They have advised May instead to replace the vote with a motion setting out the sort of Brexit deal that would be acceptable to Tory MPs, in the hope that this would trigger concessions from the EU.
Should the prime minister go ahead with her vote and lose, the Commons is likely to vote to extend article 50 and rule out a no-deal Brexit.
Over the weekend, two former cabinet ministers – Nicky Morgan and Dominic Raab – suggested May’s premiership would be in dire trouble in that scenario, with speculation that Eurosceptics will try to force her out.
The uncompromising mood among Brexit-minded Conservatives was illustrated on Monday when the Yeovil MP Marcus Fysh suggested May should abandon the meaningful vote and instead have the Commons back a motion outlining support for a deal based on technology-based “alternative arrangements” for the Irish border.
“I think it would be worth reiterating that and actually putting the detail of the proposals which we worked up with the government over recent weeks on the table,” Fysh told the BBC.
Asked about the fact Brussels has repeatedly stressed this solution is not realistic, Fysh indicated he believed this did not matter: “Well, the thing is, that is where the majority in parliament is for a deal.”
The European commission has repeatedly said it will not engage in such talks but has made its own plans to keep planes in the air and haulage routes running.
Writing in the Guardian, Sam Gyimah, a former Conservative minister who resigned as a minister to back a people’s vote, warned MPs against voting for the deal under government pressure, suggesting bad policy decisions such as the Iraq war were made under similar circumstances.
“The framing of the choice is similar to the one MPs were presented with in the run-up to the Iraq war: military action against Saddam Hussein, or the risk of an attack on this country,” he said.
“The prime minister’s version is a similarly artificial choice: her deal, or a chaotic and disorderly exit from the EU that we know will have severe consequences for our communities. MPs are effectively being asked to choose between the frying pan and the fire, in the hope they will choose the former and that will somehow be declared as a victory.”
The EU’s ambassadors have been called to meet on Monday morning to discuss the latest in the “technical” talks in Brussels, which are being led by Olly Robbins, the prime minister’s chief Brexit adviser.