Author: Rowena Mason / Source: the Guardian

Downing Street has described the Brexit talks in Brussels as “deadlocked” after negotiations over the weekend failed to find a breakthrough on the Irish backstop.

Theresa May and Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president, spoke on the telephone on Sunday evening to “take stock”, but plans for the prime minister to visit the Belgian capital to sign off on any compromise are on hold.

“No further meetings at a political level are scheduled but both sides will remain in close contact this week”, a commission spokesman added on Monday. “The commission has made proposals on further assurances that the backstop, if used, will apply temporarily… It is now for the House of commons to make an important set of decisions this week”.

The EU refuses to budge on the British proposal for what it believes is an attempt to build a unilateral exit mechanism into the Irish backstop, the arrangement that would keep the UK in a customs union to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland.

The attorney general, Geoffrey Cox, is unlikely without such a concession to revise his legal opinion, given before the last vote on May’s deal, that the backstop could be in force “indefinitely”.

The prime minister pledged in parliament to put her deal to the Commons on Tuesday but she is being urged by senior Conservative MPs to pull the vote if she fails to secure significant concessions from Brussels.

Leading Tories have warned Downing Street it could face a second huge defeat similar to the historic 230-vote loss in January if the government goes ahead.

They have advised May instead to replace the vote with a motion setting out the sort of Brexit deal that would be acceptable to Tory MPs, in the hope that this would trigger concessions from the EU.

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