The EU may have to finalise Brexit with ex-London mayor and current Telegraph columnist Boris Johnson – a prospect that many in Brussels have long feared. And it puts the Irish border backstop right back in the Brexit fray.
With Theresa May officially resigning from her job Friday, the race for a new prime minister has begun in earnest. Mrs May will remain as caretaker leader until the week of 22 July, when the leadership race is expected to finish.
There are 11 contenders in the running, and at least six are campaigning on a pledge to renegotiate the Brexit agreement with the EU: Mr Johnson (the ex-foreign secretary and London mayor), former Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt, home secretary Sajid Javid, health secretary Matt Hancock and MP Mark Harper.
Specifically, they want to completely remove or put a time limit on the Irish border backstop, the insurance policy that would essentially keep the UK in parts of the customs union and single market until a free trade deal is done. They say “alternative arrangements” can be put in place instead.
The EU’s official position is that the withdrawal agreement is not up for renegotiation, a stance that was repeated during the informal EU summit on 28 May, and again this week in the Commission’s press room.
'Alternative arrangements'
EU lead negotiator Michel Barnier, in an interview published in the New York Review of Books recently, said the EU is willing to consider “alternative arrangements” – including “technology, drones, invisible controls” – as part of a long-term post-Brexit trade deal, but that the infrastructure is simply not ready.
"We said that after the withdrawal agreement is accepted, we can immediately start work on a long-term solution for the Irish border,” he said. “The backstop is insurance, in case we do not find this solution.”
Some Brexit-watchers, such as Sinn Féin MEP Matt Carthy (who was re-elected last month) say Ireland will need to “remain vigilant” on the backstop in case the UK seeks “language that would seek to undermine” it.
“The debate that’s ongoing in the Tory leadership reinforces the fact that the Tories don’t have a notion of understanding when it comes to Ireland,” Mr Carthy told the B-Word. “The backstop is the least worst option and cannot be open for renegotiation.”
In a policy brief this week, Sam Lowe of the Centre for European Reform said the “alternative arrangements” being touted by some Brexiteers will not eliminate the need for border checks, particularly on food, live animals and plant imports.
“The Brexit trilemma lives,” Mr Lowe wrote. “The UK can have two of the following three things, but not all of them: single market and customs union exit; a whole-UK Brexit; and no Irish border. The existence of a backstop in the withdrawal agreement suggests that May, albeit reluctantly, understood this. But the penny still hasn’t dropped for many Brexiters in her party and beyond.”
Deal or no deal?
Meanwhile, former House of Commons leader Andrea Leadsom and ex-work and pensions secretary Esther McVey are openly pushing for no deal. Or a “managed” no-deal, which Mrs Leadsom believes would include sector-specific mini-deals with the EU.
US president Donald Trump, who was in the UK this week (see EUROPE 12268/15), also encouraged a no-deal Brexit, telling the Sunday Times that the UK should “just walk away” if it doesn’t get what it wants. He has also thrown his support behind a Johnson premiership.
On a brief trip to Ireland, Mr Trump compared the Irish border to the immigration standoff at the US-Mexico border, but assured Irish prime minister Leo Varadkar that “it will work out and it will all work out very well. Also, for you, with your wall, your border.”
He was quickly corrected by Mr Varadkar, who said a border is the very thing that Ireland and the EU are seeking to avoid.
(Sarah Collins)