With exactly three weeks to go until Brexit day, the EU and UK have one “last chance” to seal a deal. But following bad-tempered talks in Brussels, desperate pleas in Grimsby and stupefying gaffes in London, it’s difficult to see how it can be done.
This much we know: talks between EU and UK negotiators (at deputy negotiator level) will continue over the weekend, with Sunday night seen as the final deadline for a deal, ahead of a UK parliamentary vote on Tuesday. Negotiations are still stalled over the Northern Irish protocol, a “backstop” to keep the border with Ireland open in case EU-UK trade talks drag on.
EU lead negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday that he had offered the UK an “interpretative statement” allowing for a unilateral exit from the customs part of the backstop (but leaving Northern Ireland tied to EU single market rules).
UK attorney general Geoffrey Cox, who was in Brussels for talks again this week, needs assurances that the backstop is temporary, so he can reverse a legal opinion he made last year and give Brexiteers and the Democratic Unionist Party the cover they need to back down and vote in favour of the deal. Unfortunately, his solution (arbitration allowing the UK to unilaterally end the backstop) and his manner (he suggested the backstop breaches Northern Irish civil rights) have riled his EU colleagues, and his mooted trip to Brussels on Friday was called off.
British prime minister Theresa May was in the Brexit-voting town of Grimsby on Friday to deliver a “last chance” message to all sides. And while she said EU decisions will have a “big impact on the outcome of the vote”, her speech was more an appeal to British politicians, of all parties, to vote in favour in favour of a deal next week – or run the risk that “we might never leave the EU at all”.
And EU officials still fear that their latest offer – according to Bloomberg, a beefed-up version of a review mechanism for the backstop – may not be enough to satisfy MPs ahead of next week’s vote. The government lost the last vote in January by 432 votes to 202, meaning Mrs May needs to convince around 120 MPs to change their minds this time (see EUROPE 12172/1). According to analysts at the Eurasia group, the numbers are not in her favour. If, as expected, she does lose the vote, then the rest of her three-part plan kicks in: a vote on whether to block ‘no deal’ and, following that, a vote on whether to delay Brexit day (EUROPE 12204/20).
One other thing: Despite so much political focus on Northern Ireland, the country has been completely left behind by Brexit. According to a a special Irish Times/Ipsos MRBI poll, 59% of voters in Northern Ireland would vote to remain in the EU in a second referendum, and the same percentage of people reject checks on the border with Ireland (even if it means checks on goods coming and going from Great Britain).
There was also outrage this week after the UK’s Northern Ireland secretary, Karen Bradley, said killings by British security forces during the Troubles were “not crimes”. In a scathing editorial, The Guardian newspaper called it evidence of the “culture of sloppiness towards Northern Ireland [that] has fed into the Brexit debacle”.
An exchange between a BBC Radio 4 reporter and French Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau this week illustrates the gap between the two sides. The conversation was absurd, repetitive and went a little bit like this: “Are we heading for ‘no deal’? (Up to you, we’re ready.) What about a Brexit delay? (Only if there’s a good reason for it.) Can we tweak the backstop? (This version was your idea!) What about a customs union? (Give us a sustainable proposal.)”
How can anyone expect to solve complex issues like post-Brexit customs arrangements for a former war zone when there is so much misunderstanding and miscommunication? (Sarah Collins)