Brexit: Lord Empey warns of backstop ‘smoke and mirrors’

The UUP peer spoke after another day of little movement from the EU side of the talks, with European negotiator Michel Barnier restating the bloc’s refusal to renegotiate what had been agreed already with the UK government.

Today marks 35 days to the Brexit date of March 29, and objections by a cross-party collection of MPs to the backstop arrangement in the Withdrawal Agreement remain a major stumbling block for sealing a deal.

There have been calls for the text of the Withdrawal Agreement itself, agreed in November, to be changed.

But more recently it has been suggested that the problem of the backstop – which unionists fear could lock Northern Ireland closely into EU rules on a permenant basis after Brexit – could be resolved by adding a “codicil”, a sort of caveat, on to the end of the existing agreement.

In comments carried by the News Letter on Wednesday, DUP MP Gregory Campbell said the withdrawal blueprint “has to change” but added: “We are not getting into the pedantics of whether that will be a codicil, an addition, or a deletion.”

Lord Empey told the News Letter the Brady amendment (which the Commons voted for last month) demanded “a replacement” to the backstop plan – not merely “amendments” to it.

“Now I think the government, and to an extent the DUP, have abandoned that already,” said Lord Empey.

“We’re now looking at some kind of smoke and mirrors to find a means of getting out of it...

“I hear talk about ‘codicils’ and so on. The question is: Who arbitrates as to the interpretation of those?

“Because, if it’s the European Court, you can forget about that from the start.”

Shortly after he spoke last night, a statement arrived from DUP MP Nigel Dodds which said: “The prime minister’s focus must remain on delivering the will of Parliament as outlined in the Brady amendment and her commitments to the House of Commons...

“Parliament has put forward a positive proposal. The Brady amendment gave the prime minister a clear mandate for change.

“Faced with that, it seems some within Europe have chosen to close down options rather than engage in positive and pragmatic negotiations.”

DUP MP Jeffrey Donaldson was asked last night by the News Letter if a ‘codocil’ would satisfy him, as opposed to a rewriting of the Withdrawal Agreement.

“All I will say on that is that we haven’t seen any detail yet on any proposal to provide legally-binding assurance that the withdrawal arrangement will be temporary in nature, and not indefinite as is currently the case,” he said.

“And we’ll judge any proposal coming from Brussels on that basis.”

He said the attorney general should say whether any “clarification” added on to the Withdrawal Agreement would indeed be “legally binding”.

As to whether ‘no deal’ is the only real outcome at this stage, he said: “Having taken part in many negotiations throughout my political career, I still believe that there’s adequate time to deal with the issues of concern that have been raised by many MPs and across the parties in Parliament.”