Theresa May will present the EU with new legal proposals to solve the Irish backstop issue on Wednesday, which No 10 hopes will be enough to convince Eurosceptics to back her Brexit deal.
The prime minister is travelling to Brussels to meet Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president, with a plan to secure legal assurances that the Irish backstop would not permanently bind the UK into a customs union.
She was forced to admit to Conservative MPs that the Irish backstop could not be replaced by the “Malthouse compromise” – proposals for a free trade agreement with as-yet-unknown technology to avoid customs checks on the Irish border.
However, she stressed that this solution would still be examined in future to help solve the issue of customs arrangements at the Irish border.
The Malthouse compromise was named after the housing minister, Kit Malthouse, who helped draft it as an attempt to find a Brexit deal the warring sides of the Tory party could back.
The most hardline Eurosceptics have repeatedly said they will only support May’s deal if the compromise is written into the EU withdrawal agreement to replace the backstop – the mechanism that would keep the UK in a customs union if there were no solution to the Irish border.
However, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Steve Baker sounded a conciliatory tone on Tuesday, insisting that the Malthouse agreement was “still live and kicking” and saying they looked forward to further developments.
No 10 appears to be placing its hopes for breaking the deadlock with the EU on legal assurances that the Irish backstop potentially binding the UK into a customs union would not be permanent.
Stephen Barclay, the Brexit secretary, held talks on Monday with the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier.
He is understood to have warned Barnier that the consequence of the deal not passing would result either in a no-deal or in parliament taking control of events, adding extra uncertainty and difficulty to the UK-EU negotiations.
If May and Juncker can agree a possible way forward on Wednesday night, officials will then start work on the technical and legal practicalities. The goal is for Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, to be able to change his legal advice to the government, which currently states that the backstop could mean a permanent customs union. Cox is expected to give a speech later this week setting out his thinking.
No 10 had been hoping to secure a renegotiated withdrawal agreement and put this to parliament next week, but senior sources acknowledged time was running out.
The gap between the expectations in parliament and the reality of the talks in Brussels was made clear on Tuesday by the European commission’s chief spokesman ahead of May’s visit.
Asked about Barnier’s two-hour meeting with Barclay and Cox on Monday, the spokesman said: “We cannot accept a time limit to the backstop or a unilateral exit clause and further talks will be held this week to see whether a way through can be found that could gain the broadest possible support in the UK parliament and respect the guidelines agreed by the European council.”
EU sources expressed frustration that they were having to “re-educate” Cox, who is new to the talks, about the lack of realism in the central demands made by May.
That irritation has been shared in Berlin. Michael Roth, Germany’s minister for Europe, said new “realistic suggestions” were needed from Downing Street to allow the negotiations to progress.
“There is no point in abstractly demanding changes or to make demands, which are completely unacceptable for us,” Roth said. “There can be no limit to the backstop, there can’t be an automatic expiration of the backstop.
“Right now I do not see the necessary willingness to budge on the part of the British and this doesn’t make things easier because time is running out.”
EU sources said Barnier and his deputy, Sabine Weyand, had been “forensic” in their dismantling of the Malthouse compromise on Monday. Barnier told Barclay that suspending EU law on the border was not a viable solution to the problem. Weyand later privately lamented that the EU was having to repeat arguments to Cox first made in August 2017.
Officials are looking at translating into legal text the previous commitments by Juncker, and his European council counterpart, Donald Tusk, about the temporary nature of the backstop, and their intention to work on a technological solution to supercede the backstop in the future.
But officials are sceptical that such a move would satisfy the Democratic Unionist party or the Tory Brexiters, who had been led to believe the withdrawal agreement would be reopened in order to win their support.
With time running out, cabinet was also updated on the option of a no-deal Brexit if May cannot get her withdrawal agreement approved by parliament. One cabinet source said only Liz Truss, the secretary to the Treasury, spoke up emphatically in favour of keeping no deal as a negotiating option.
“I can’t understand how a No 2 at the Treasury could still countenance keeping that on the table,” the cabinet source said, but added that the general mood in the room had noticeably turned against no deal as a negotiating tactic.
The Guardian
