May seeks treaty with Varadkar to bin backstop

Irish Sunday Times

May seeks treaty with Varadkar to bin backstop


Tim Shipman and Stephen O’Brien


British prime minister Theresa May wants to offer a bilateral treaty to Ireland in order to remove the “backstop” from the EU withdrawal treaty and prevent a hard border by other means.

The proposal is part of May’s plan B to salvage her Brexit deal. Aides think it would “decontaminate” the withdrawal agreement so it could be supported by the DUP and Tory Eurosceptics.

However, last night the Irish government indicated it will reject a bilateral treaty with Britain if it is proposed by the prime minister when she addresses the House of Commons tomorrow. Senior Irish government sources told The Sunday Times the proposal was “not something we would entertain”.

Simon Coveney, the minister for foreign affairs, also moved to dampen speculation that Ireland might soften its position on the backstop. “I can assure you the Irish government's commitment to the entire withdrawal agreement is absolute — including the backstop,” he tweeted. “As Brexit dominates news coverage, [it’s] no surprise that some analysis today gets it wrong.”

A senior political source said a treaty between Ireland and Britain was not a runner. “They need to be more focused on the future relationship, as that’s the only way to render the backstop unnecessary,” the source said. “If [May] comes back with a treaty plan, it won't work with the commission.”

A source close to the Department of Foreign Affairs said: “We haven't heard of the bilateral treaty but it doesn’t sound like something we would entertain. There is no movement on the backstop.”

The prime minister’s chief of staff, Gavin Barwell, has told two cabinet ministers that if plan B falters, she might have to offer to stand down in the month of May in a bid to drum up more support for her deal.

May will tomorrow table a “neutral motion” and give both a written and an oral statement to the Commons about her next moves. Two different groups of rebels will then table amendments, to be debated on January 29, that will seek to allow backbench MPs to seize control of Commons business and force through their own legislation — a device seen by May’s team as a constitutional “coup”.

One group, led by Nick Boles and Yvette Cooper, will attempt to outlaw a no-deal Brexit. But a group of more than 20 plotters wants to go further by suspending article 50. Their plan would need the support of 300 MPs — not even a majority — as long as they came from five different parties. Only 10 Tories would have to approve, making it all but impossible for May’s team to thwart the plot.

Deep splits have emerged in Downing Street over May's plan B, which was signed off at a crunch meeting with her most trusted allies on Friday. Barwell clashed with the prime minister after pressuring her to support a permanent customs union with the EU in

order to secure the support of Labour MPs. Instead, May sided with party chairman Brandon Lewis and chief whip Julian Smith, who warned her that such a move would destroy the Conservative Party. Now colleagues fear Barwell may resign, along with up to 20 ministers who want a soft Brexit.

Richard Harrington, a business minister, said: “We will do anything we can to stop this nonsense of a hard Brexit. We don’t want to be put in a position where we have to resign from the government for that to be the case. That might mean supporting the Nick Boles plan.”

May will discuss her plan B in a cabinet conference call today and could visit to Brussels this week. A source familiar with the talks said: “She's going to try to separate the deal from the backstop. They're talking about a separate treaty for Ireland and then go to Brussels and say, ‘This is what we need. You decontaminate the rest of the treaty. If the DUP signal that they are OK with it, that provides the conditions to succeed.”

Downing Street also plans to enshrine pledges to remain aligned with EU regulations on workers’ rights in law in order to drum up votes from Labour MPs. Cabinet ministers made clear that if the prime minister's new strategy to save her deal fails she must call a general election rather than a second EU referendum and claimed that internal party polling shows that the Tories can win a majority.

(Mixing up the message, page 10)