Forum Topic

Back stop problem solved

England ploughed through it 4 times yesterday  ,result !! Apologies to all Europeans for being English at Rugby .

Andy Pike ● 2838d8 Comments

... but not, ahem, at cricket.

Richard Carter ● 2838d

Didn't realise there was a backstop problem with the west Indies are they European now then?

Andy Pike ● 2838d

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/brexiteers-reject-eu-concession-on-backstop-zzfmpnt6sMartin Selmayr, the European Union’s most senior civil servant, spent 90 minutes with members of the Brexit select committee, who emerged saying that he was prepared to make significant concessions on Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement.Mr Selmayr offered to give the prime minister a legally binding assurance that the backstop would not lock Britain into a permanent customs union with the EU, the MPs said.Any such shift would allow Mrs May to say that she had secured fundamental changes to her deal, which fell to a heavy defeat in the Commons last month.However, the Brexiteers on the committee, including the Conservative MPs Andrea Jenkyns and John Whittingdale, a former culture secretary, rebuffed Mr Selmayr.

Lucille Grant ● 2836d

But reading down that report, it looks a lot less convincing:"Stephen Crabb, the Conservative MP for Preseli Pembrokeshire, said that Mr Selmayr was evasive on whether the EU would actually offer the concession.“We talked around the idea of the letter being written into some sort of legal protocol. Every time someone asked him if it was something he could do, he said, ‘Let me turn around the question, if we were to do that would you be guaranteed to vote for the deal?’ ”, he said. “That’s where some of the more Brexiteer members of the committee wouldn’t say.” ...  Mr Selmayr insisted that his comments did not represent a change to the EU negotiating position but were about sounding out MPs. “The answers . . . were inconclusive,” he said, adding: “The meeting confirmed that the EU did well to start its no-deal preparations in December 2017.”

Richard Carter ● 2836d

For me he was sounding out the  offer but was given a resounding no.

Lucille Grant ● 2836d

Yes, I think that's right. The EU approach has consistently been to try to find out what the UK really wants, and any concessions will only be offered if the UK side can convince them that that would finally settle the issue: understandably, they (the EU side) are worried that feeding concessions to the extreme Brexiteers will only encourage them to make yet more demands.

Richard Carter ● 2836d

That's not what I meant: I was merely trying to say that the English were being, well, English at cricket. Not for the first (or, no doubt, for the last) time...

Richard Carter ● 2836d

The same Selmayr who yesterday said that the UK must pay the £39 billion Brexit bill even if there is a no-deal exit. He warned that the future relationship between the UK and EU could be jeopardised by a refusal to pay a financial settlement after no deal. The warning could be interpreted as a thinly veiled threat that in the event of no deal the EU would refuse any free trade negotiations. I hope he can whistle.

Sue Hammond ● 2836d