No 10 says UK will not let EU have veto over when backstop ends
At the lobby briefing with journalists this afternoon, the prime minister’s spokeswoman denied the hard-fought Northern Irish backstop plan was a “fudge”, saying: “I wouldn’t recognise that the word that you’ve chosen to put to me.”
She played down the significance of this morning’s dramatic meetings with David Davis, saying:
The prime minister has rightly held discussions with many of her cabinet ministers on this important issue. We have now got a document which is agreed government policy.
Asked whether the December 2021 date was legally binding, she said:
The backstop is not something that we want to come to be; we remain confident that we will have our customs arrangements in place by the implementation period - but, as a sensible government, of course we cannot ignore the possibility that there may be technical delays.
It also became clear that the government hopes to avoid a situation in which the EU27 would hold a veto over when the backstop period should end. The spokeswoman said:
It’s important to say that we’re not going to sign up to anything which means that the EU could hold us in a temporary backstop when our customs arrangements are ready. At the point that a new customs arrangement that meets our commitment on Northern Ireland is ready, the backstop must end.
She was also pressed on whether implementing the backstop would mean the government having to make additional payments to the EU. She appeared to choose her words carefully, repeatedly saying: “There’s no legal requirement to pay into the EU budget after the implementation period.”
Scottish government announces inquiry into policing of miners' strike
An independent review into the impact of policing during the miners’ strike of the 1980s is to be carried out in Scotland, the Press Association reports. Michael Matheson, the Scottish government’s justice secretary, announced the move in Holyrood, telling MSPs: “I am determined that the Scottish government should do what it can to do right by those affected by the dispute.”
The UK government has already ruled out an inquiry into the violent confrontations between police and striking miners in Orgreave, South Yorkshire, in 1984. Matheson said doing nothing was not an option for him as he urged new home secretary, Sajid Javid, to follow his example.
John Scott QC will lead the inquiry, which will make its recommendations by June next year. It will look at “the impact of policing on affected communities in Scotland” between March 1984 and March 1985.
In his statement Matheson said:
Through this independent review, Scotland will lead the way in ensuring the experiences of those affected by the policing of the dispute in the 1980s are properly understood.
This represented an extremely turbulent and difficult time for many mining communities in Scotland. And although more than three decades have passed, the feelings and scars from that time still run deep and there are questions that still need to be answered.
I want this review to bring openness, understanding and a degree of closure to all those involved. At the same time, I have written to the home secretary to ask that he seriously reconsider the UK government’s position at this point - only a UK-wide investigation could fully explore concerns about the involvement of the then UK government.
Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
The DUP Commons leader Nigel Dodds told the BBC in Northern Ireland today’s backstop deal was a “massive step forward” because it extended the regulatory alignment to the whole of the UK while negotiations on the final trade relationship were ongoing.
“Theresa May has stuck to her word that no PM could countenance a border in the Irish Sea ... our red line has not been breached,” he told Sky News in Ireland.
David Blevins (@skydavidblevins)Nigel Dodds MP, DUP deputy leader: "Theresa May has stuck to her word that no PM could countenance a border in the Irish Sea... our red line has not been breached." #Backstop #Brexit
June 7, 2018
Dodds met May yesterday, in contrast to December when the DUP were not taken into the prime minister’s confidence and threatened to torpedo the Brussels-London deal.
Former Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale urged Nicola Sturgeon to raise Northern Ireland’s abortion ban with DUP leader Arlene Foster when she visits Scotland at the end of the month.
Speaking during first minister’s questions on Thursday lunchtime, Dugdale called for a travel bursary to be introduced for women travelling from Northern Ireland to access abortion services which the Scottish government made free to them last November.
Sturgeon said that she had “no plans” to meet Foster, who will be leading an Orange Order march in Fife on July 30.
She added that the Scottish government would continue to look at how to make it easier for Northern Irish women to access abortion services in Scotland, and expressed her hoped that, once the Northern Ireland Assembly was up and running again, it would address abortion rights swiftly.
It’s a tricky position for Sturgeon, who has always been resolutely pro-choice, but is unlikely to want to lend her support to the Westminster government essentially imposing abortion reform on a devolved administration. Of course there is the argument that there is currently no administration, and that human rights trump devolution, but it would set a dangerous precedent from the SNP’s perspective. I’d be curious to know how many SNP MPs support Stella Creasy’s campaign.
Irish PM says UK Brexit backstop cannot be time limited
Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar dismissed the idea of a time-limited backstop earlier today.
Using a phrase the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michael Barnier used in a subsequent tweet (see 2.02pm), Varadkar told reporters in Dublin that the backstop had to be an insurance policy for “all weather” not just for the UK’s convenience. He said:
The principle that is in the existing backstop that is supported by the 27 EU member states is that it applies at least until there is an alternative in place. It is not something that can be just time limited.
Varadkar was speaking just before the backstop paper was published in London. He went on:
It has to be as they say ’all weather’, it has to be applicable until such a time if and when there is a new relationship between the EU and UK that prevents a hard border.
This flatly contradicts the UK government document, which clearly says the backstop should be time limited. Although paragraph 26, about ending the backstop in December 2021, is provisional (“the UK expects”), paragraph 6 is clear that there should be some sort of time limit. (See 1.44pm.) It says:
This temporary arrangement would only come into force following the implementation period, in specific and narrow circumstances, such as a delay in the implementation of the end state customs arrangement, and would be time-limited.
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