EU lawmaker: No chance of Brexit deal until Irish border issue solved

A Member of the European Parliament responsible for coordinating talks on Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union has derided London’s way of dealing with Brexit talks, saying the UK government would better forget about a Brexit deal if it wanted to dodge the question of Irish border.

Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, told a meeting of MEPs in Strasbourg, France, on Wednesday that the main stumbling block in talks on reaching a Brexit deal was how the EU and Britain wanted to resolve differences on the future situation of the Irish border.

Verhofstadt also said that British Prime Minister Theresa May was apparently using her own nation’s way of dealing with numbers when counting how much progress she had made in Brexit talks.

“We are now in a battle of the figures. Mrs May says 95% has been agreed, Michel Barnier (EU’s Brexit negotiator) says 90% has been agreed. I know Britain has always had difficulties with the metric system,” said  Verhofstadt, adding, “If it is 90% or 95% or 99%, if there is no solution for the Irish border, for our parliament it is 0% that is agreed at the moment.”

Britain has resisted EU’s demand for putting in place a backstop plan that would keep Northern Ireland in EU’s customs union for the two-year transition period after Brexit date on March 29, 2019 and until a future trade deal is agreed between the two sides. The plan is meant to ensure that there will be no return to the hard border between Northern Ireland, which is a UK province, and Ireland, an EU state.

Britain, which says the backstop would separate Northern Ireland from the rest of United Kingdom, has instead opted for a UK-wide ranging customs union after Brexit or a possibility for extending the 21-month transition period beyond 2020.

'May proposed extended transition'

In a fresh blow to May’s Brexit strategy, Donald Tusk, the president of the European council, told the same meeting of MEPs that it was May who had brought up the idea of an extended transition at last week’s EU summit in Brussels.

“Since Prime Minister May mentioned the idea of extending the transition period, let me repeat that if the UK decided that such an extension would be helpful to reach a deal, I am sure that the leaders would be ready to consider it positively,” said Tusk.

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Both hardline supporters of Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers in the British parliament have been angered by the extension idea as it would keep the UK under EU’s governance with no say in it for an indefinite period of time.

May’s spokesman said on Wednesday that the premier did not want to enter into an indefinite post-Brexit transition period. May had earlier indicated that such an extension will only last for few months.

However, papers leaked from the British government to the Times newspaper have shown that May’s Brexit plans could leave Britain locked in a “long-running” multi-year transition period.

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