May could drop backstop with plan B

Move might win conservative votes but compromise Good Friday Agreement

British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to announce plans to drop the so-called Irish Backstop to try and break the deadlock over Brexit.

Last week May's Brexit plan, endorsed by the other 27 EU member states, was comprehensively rejected by Parliament, giving her three days to present an alternative, known as plan B.

After last week's defeat, May proposed cross-party talks, but Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to take part unless May scrapped a no-deal Brexit, which would see Britain leave the EU at the end of March with no agreement, potentially having a huge economic and social impact.

May seems to have abandoned the consensus idea and is now focusing on trying to regain the support of the 118 members of her own Conservative Party who voted against her last week, and Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, known as the DUP.

The border between Northern Ireland, part of Great Britain, and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member state, is Britain's only frontier with another EU state.

At the moment, there is no hard border, a result of the Good Friday Agreement struck in 1998 between political parties in the UK, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. This helped kick-start the peace process ending decades of violent civil conflict known as "the Troubles".

As it stands, the Irish backstop proposal means that if a trade deal to keep an open border cannot be reached in time for Brexit, the UK would effectively continue to be part of an EU customs union, with the length of such an agreement and its more detailed points yet to be finalized.

This is unpalatable to many hardline Brexit supporters and is also highly contentious with the DUP, upon whose support May's minority government relies for support.

But removing the backstop is seen as compromising the Good Friday Agreement, which is a United Nations formal treaty.

The Irish government has no interest in direct talks, saying that any attempted renegotiation must be conducted with all the other EU member states.

"This is a negotiation between the EU and the UK," Ireland's European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee said.

"What we can't do and what we won't do, because we have not throughout this entire process, is engage in any kind of bilateral negotiations with the DUP or any other political party in Northern Ireland or the UK."

The EU's chief negotiator Michel Barnier has also poured cold water on the plan, saying the existing Withdrawal Agreement, including the Irish backstop, is "the best deal possible" for the UK.

Conservative MP Anna Soubry, one of May's most vocal internal critics, told Channel 4 News she feared plan B is a no-deal Brexit.

"It's the only thing that she's kept on the table," she said.

"She won't move on a customs union, she won't move on the single market, she won't move on a second referendum with a people's vote, so what's left? No deal, and it's still there. And it's got to come off the table because it's the very worst thing that could happen."

The government has drawn up contingency plans for troop deployment in the case of civil unrest after a no-deal Brexit, and conducted tests for the disruption that would be caused at British ports where goods are imported.

The National Health Service has become the world's biggest buyer of refrigeration, to stockpile medicines, and now private individuals are following that lead.

The Guardian newspaper reported that three-quarters of UK warehouse owners reported that Brexit fears have driven up storage costs by up to 25 percent in the last three months.

Almost 75 percent said they were now unable to take on new customers, according to the report.

julian@mail.chinadailyuk.com

(China Daily 01/22/2019 page11)