EU offers assurances to UK on Irish clause in Brexit deal
The European Union has told UK Prime Minister Theresa May that it stood by commitments to find ways to avoid triggering the controversial “Irish backstop” in their Brexit deal.
European Council President Donald Tusk and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker wrote a letter to May on Monday in which they set out assurances about the so-called Irish backstop.
The backstop agreement stipulates how the only land border between the two sides should be administered if Britain and the EU fail to reach a comprehensive trade deal by December 2020.
The EU letter came amid the deepest crisis in British politics for at least half a century, though there was little sign of a change of heart among rebel UK lawmakers.
Many lawmakers have criticized the backstop, saying the clause will allow the EU to indefinitely include the entire UK in its customs union without London having a say in rules and regulations adopted in Brussels.
May pulled an original vote on her Brexit deal in parliament in early December and said she would try to gain assurances from the EU on the backstop to please critics in the House of Commons.
Britain’s attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, said on Monday that he had read the EU letter in the backstop and said it would have enough legal force.
Cox said in a letter to May that although the EU assurances did not “alter the fundamental meanings” of the Brexit deal’s provisions, his judgment was that the deal was “the only politically practicable and available means” of securing Britain’s exit from the EU.
The fate of the United Kingdom’s March 29 exit from the EU is deeply uncertain as parliament is likely to reject May’s deal on Tuesday evening, opening up outcomes ranging from a disorderly divorce to reversing Brexit altogether.
May herself reiterated on Monday that a rejection of the deal would highly increase chances for the cancellation of Brexit.
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