The stand-off between Downing Street and the European Union over Boris Johnson’s latest proposal for the backstop boils down to a disagreement over whether the British government really cares about getting a Brexit deal at all. When Donald Tusk rejected Johnson’s plan today, he all but accused him of being set on a no-deal exit, saying: ‘The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found. Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it.’
A Downing Street spokesperson hit back at this, insisting that ‘we are ready to negotiate, in good faith, an alternative to the backstop, with provisions to ensure that the Irish border issues are dealt with where they should always have been: in the negotiations on the future agreement between the UK and the EU’.
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