IRELAND’S DEPUTY Prime Minister Simon Coveney has dismissed the idea of the EU scrapping the Irish backstop.
Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show over the weekend, Coveney also warned that a no-deal Brexit would have serious consequences for both the UK and Ireland.
There had been some suggestions that significant changes to the withdrawal agreement negotiated by Theresa May could help stave off a no-deal scenario but the Irish deputy PM appeared unconvinced.
“If the approach of the new British prime minister is that they’re going to tear up the withdrawal agreement, I think we’re in trouble. I think we’re all in trouble, quite frankly,” Coveney said.
“That’s like saying, ‘Either give me what I want or I’m going to burn the house down for everybody’.”
Coveney was keen to stress that any blame for a no-deal Brexit would land squarely at the feet of the UK government, rather than the EU.
He also warned the some form of border checks would need to be implemented between Ireland and Northern Ireland.
“Just because there’s a change in personality as British prime minister doesn’t mean that the negotiation of the last three years and the solutions that were designed by the British government as much as by the EU aren’t still as relevant and important today as they were six or eight weeks ago.”
Simon Coveney says the EU and Ireland are in agreement on the backstop (Image: Getty)Coveney also spoke in frank terms about the Irish backstop, dismissing the idea of implementing major changes to the agreement, such as a time limit.
“We’ve always said no to that,” he said. “There’s a context around this. You have to be able to answer the question, if asked, of what happens at the end of that time limit. And if you can’t answer that question then it’s not a backstop at all.”
Coveney reminded Marr that the backstop was first introduced as a means of “reassuring people in Northern Ireland that they are not going to go back to the friction and tensions of the past”.
“To ask Ireland to compromise on that core issue, when we spent two and a half years working with the British government and the EU to try and find a way to compromise on all sides to ensure that we don’t face that prospect, it is not a reasonable ask, because of a political challenge in Westminster, to move away from that position.”
“If the House of Commons chooses to facilitate a no-deal Brexit, and if a new British prime minister chooses to take Britain in that direction, then it will happen. But this will be a British choice. Not an Irish choice, not an EU choice – this is a British choice,” he said.
“What I mean is, we cannot allow an open back door into the EU single market through Northern Ireland. If we do then the Republic of Ireland would be taken out of the single market as well, and I can’t allow that.”
