Sunday shows round-up – Simon Coveney: The backstop ‘isn’t going to change’

Andrew Marr was joined this morning by the Irish Deputy Prime Minister Simon Coveney. The interview turned immediately to the divisive backstop, the arrangement whereby the UK could effectively remain in the EU’s customs union after 2020 if no alternative arrangement is made to avoid a ‘hard border’ on Northern Ireland. Coveney told Marr that there was no appetite from either the Irish government or the EU for further change:

AM: Can I ask you first of all whether you are prepared to shift at all on this very vexed question of the backstop?

SC: Well, I mean, the straight answer to that is that the backstop is already a compromise… The very need for the backstop in the first place was because of British red lines that they wanted to leave the customs union and single market as well as the European Union. So the Irish position is, look, we have already agreed to a series of compromises here… The backstop, as part of the withdrawal agreement, is part of a balanced package that isn’t going to change.