Theresa May risks Cabinet fury after conceding Irish backstop cannot have end date
Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom are said to be threatening to walk after the PM told Leo Varadkar she accepted Brussels demand
THERESA May has conceded the Irish backstop cannot have an end date, risking the threat of fresh Cabinet resignations.
The PM told Leo Varadkar she accepted Brussels’ demands that any fallback border solution cannot be “time-limited”.
But British officials insisted they will demand a get-out clause to stop us being shackled to the EU forever.
She made the admission in a meeting with the Taioseach just hours before telling other leaders the UK would consider extending the transition period.
Mr Varadkar said: “We both agreed it should be temporary. If it does have to be invoked it should only apply unless and until we have a new agreement in place.
“We all recognise that it can’t be time-limited in the sense that it can’t have an expiry date.
“It only comes into force if we don’t have an agreement to supersede it and it only ceases to be in force when we do have an agreement to supersede it.”
But a fudge could cost Mrs May two eurosceptic Cabinet ministers, with Esther McVey and Andrea Leadsom threatening to resign if there’s not a set end date.
Mr Varadkar later went into a dinner of EU bosses and showed them up a copy of the Irish Times featuring a story about an IRA bombing of a border post.
The Taisoeach said the 1972 atrocity, in which eight people were killed, showed why maintaining the peace is more important than trade.
Meanwhile eurocrats warned the PM that she will have to sign up to a permanent customs union if she wants to seal a UK-wide backstop.
An EU source said: “There’s room for manoeuvre on both sides. We see progress as the UK coming up with a new position, for example on UK-wide customs.
“But if we’re moving towards a UK-wide customs for the backstop then the EU needs to have an indication that’s what the future relationship will be.”
Irish sources suggested Dublin was prepared to consider inserting a clause into the Withdrawal Agreement pledging a UK-wide backstop.
But they said there’s no time to negotiate it between now and March meaning a Northern Ireland only solution is still required as a bridging measure.
Dutch PM Mark Rutte told The Sun: “It should be doable using the legal, the practical and the time dimension to get this last big issue solved.”
EU officials said the PM was upbeat in her address to leaders on Wednesday night but Member States are more gloomy on the lack of progress.
A senior source said: “There is a certain difference in the assessment of where we are now.
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“May has a positive assessment of where we are, focused on the considerable progress that has been made and emphasises that a deal is in reach.
“The collective feeling among the EU27 is somewhat more sceptical and notes the lack of progress, or at least the lack of agreement at this stage.”
But Polish PM Mateusz Morawiecki praised her speech as “an important intervention which - with appropriate attitude from both sides - may offer a way out of this impasse.”
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