Ireland ups pressure on May over Brexit backstop

Ireland said the contentious Brexit backstop arrangement would not be renegotiated as British MPs prepared for a crunch vote on the UK's withdrawal agreement tomorrow.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney on Sunday said the backstop had been initially required because of the UK's insistence on leaving the European Union's customs union and single market.

“So the Irish position is, look, we have already agreed to a series of compromises here, and that has resulted in what is proposed in the withdrawal agreement. Ireland has the same position as the European Union now, when we say that the backstop, as part of the withdrawal agreement, is part of a balanced package that isn’t going to change,” he said.

The backstop is designed to stop a hard border between Ireland and the six Northern Irish provinces administered by England if Britain and the EU cannot agree a free trade deal.

On Tuesday MPs will vote on amendments to Prime Minister Theresa May's withdrawal agreements. The deal suffered the biggest defeat in parliamentary history last week by a whopping 230 vote majority.

Unsurprisingly, the backstop has divided MPs, with some pushing for amendments that will remove or time-limit the mechanism and others are looking to make sure they can stop a no-deal Brexit.

There were suggestions on Monday that Conservative MPs who backed May’s defeated plan were preparing to u-turn and move towards a softer agreement if parliament blocked the no-deal scenario on Tuesday.

Former Labour cabinet minister Yvette Cooper has tabled a motion that would rule out a no-deal and delay Britain's scheduled departure date of March 29 by nine months.

Conservative MP Nick Boles is pressing for a Norway-style arrangement that would keep the UK in the customs union.