Bertie Ahern: Johnson will have ideas from interim report on how to resolve backstop

Mr Ahern told the RTE Today with Sean O'Rourke programme that the UK knew it would have to stay in the Customs Union during the transition period to avoid a hard border.

Mr Ahern said: "Like all leaks and non-papers you only get a bit of it, so you're not sure what the full context is, I think Boris Johnson and certainly his advisers they know that that's not going to be a runner.

"The officials accepted back in May/June 2018, when Theresa May was dealing with the Backstop, she said that the logic of the Backstop was accepted, that to avert a hard border Britain would stay in the Customs Union and in regulatory alignment with the EU, even after the transitional period, that time was meant to be December 2020.

"So, at official level they had accepted that back in the early summer of 2018, so today to be trying to spin out a position that is far inferior to what was there then - it's a non-paper and a non-runner."

The former Taoiseach continued, saying that the British government has not got long left to bring forth ideas.

He said: "They have about 10 days left, a lot of what is coming out in the British press are ideas that are set out in the alternative arrangements for the Irish border, the interim report which was done by a group called Prosperity

"They did a huge amount of work, and a lot of good work, it's a very good paper even the short summary is a good paper. I've read that two months ago, it sets out a lot of ways you could try to deal with goods.

Some of the ideas are that you would bring Donegal and Derry together into an economic zone. It was that paper that set out the all-Ireland agricultural process.

"I think it's a good guess to say that some of the ideas that Boris has will also come from that paper. I think that is being used as the basis for his inner group to throw out ideas."

However, Mr Ahern believes the British Prime Minister has missed his opportunity to get an extension to the Brexit deadline.

He said: "It doesn't seem likely that the gap will be bridged. I think he had a wonderful opportunity on the Supreme Court judgement, he didn't like it, he should have said he didn't like it but he accepted it and he should have said then that he would go to Brussels and seek an extension and to say that the extension he wanted was the April extension which Donald Tusk was trying to get through many months ago, except that president Macron wouldn't agree with it.

"If he had done that he could have went ahead with his election, the election would have given whatever result, he might have done well enough out of that and said we'll keep going with the work on an ongoing basis. To try to play that game that he can defy the law of the United Kingdom parliament seems another non-runner.

It's obviously Cummins' tactics, very much Steve Bannon's tactics, same sides of the same coin, it's disruption and I just think that's bad politics.

"That's the game, the game is to keep pushing it, to keep accusing the other side of being wrong, he wants to force his position, that seems to be where he's at. He's not really looking for a comprehensive settlement."

Earlier: 'We have a solution' on backstop, says Boris Johnson

By Press Association

Boris Johnson will know within days whether he can secure a Brexit deal with the European Union.

The British Prime Minister’s formal proposals are due to be submitted to Brussels later this week and Mr Johnson said it would soon become apparent if there is “no way of getting it over the line from their point of view”.

Mr Johnson urged leaders in Brussels, Dublin and Berlin to work with him as the “rubber hits the road” on efforts to strike a deal ahead of the October 31 scheduled Brexit date.

His comments came after the Government rejected proposals for customs posts along both sides of the border to replace the backstop.

RTÉ reported that the suggestion sent to the EU by the UK would lead to the posts being built between five and 10 miles back from the current border.

Non-Paper = Non-Starter. Time the EU had a serious proposal from the UK Govt if a #Brexit deal is to be achievable in October. NI and IRE deserves better!

— Simon Coveney (@simoncoveney) September 30, 2019

Tánaiste Simon Coveney said people both sides of the border “deserve better”.

But Mr Johnson said those were preliminary ideas that had been floated rather than the formal proposals which are expected to be set out later this week after the Tory conference finishes on Wednesday.

“They are not talking about the proposals we are going to be tabling, they are talking about stuff that went in previously,” he told the BBC.

“But clearly this is the moment when the rubber hits the road.

“This is when the hard yards really are in the course of the negotiations.”

The border question has become the main stumbling block to a Brexit deal.

“The difficulty really is going to be around the customs union and to what extent Northern Ireland can be retained within EU bodies at all,” Mr Johnson said.

“We’re going to make a very good offer, we are going to be tabling it very soon, but there is a difficulty if you try to keep Northern Ireland in a customs union because one of the basic things about being a country is you have a single customs perimeter and a single customs union.”

The British Prime Minister said he believed he had a “good solution” and “I very much hope that our European and EU friends in Brussels, in Dublin, in Germany as well, will want to take it forward”.

He suggested that the British Government would have a clear idea by the weekend whether a deal with the EU would be possible.

“We think it’s a good proposal,” he told LBC.

“Clearly, if there is no way of getting it over the line from their point of view, we will have to live with that.”

The idea for the customs posts was contained in the so-called “non-papers” submitted by UK officials during recent technical discussions.

Mr Coveney tweeted: “Non-Paper = Non-Starter. Time the EU had a serious proposal from the UK Govt if a #Brexit deal is to be achievable in October. NI and IRE deserves better!”

A Government spokesman said a credible alternative to the backstop had yet to be proposed by the UK.

“The EU taskforce has indicated that any non-papers it has received from the UK to date fall well short of the agreed aims and objectives of the backstop,” he said.

If accurate, these proposals represent yet another failure of the Government’s negotiating strategy.

The Prime Minister should admit he has no credible plan for Brexit and that the only way to resolve this issue is to go back to the people with a public vote. 4/

— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) September 30, 2019

The UK's Shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer said: “If Boris Johnson had spent any time listening to businesses and communities in Northern Ireland, he would know that these proposals are utterly unworkable.”

But Mr Johnson insisted “that is not what we are proposing at all”, telling BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it was “absolutely not” true that he wanted to create a hard border a few miles away from the actual border.

But he said it was a “reality” that some checks would be needed to create a “single customs territory” for the UK once it leaves the EU.

Meanwhile, The Times reported that Mr Johnson’s plan to get around the Benn Act – the law aimed at preventing a no-deal Brexit without MPs’ approval – would be to ask EU leaders to rule out any extension to the October 31 deadline.

Mr Johnson denied that was the case, adding: “In truth, we have not made any such request.”

But he did appear to question whether the Benn Act had been drawn up in collaboration with other EU states following claims from Downing Street sources of “collusion with foreign powers”.

There is a “legitimate question” to be asked about how the legislation came about, he said.

Mr Johnson dismissed as “absolute nonsense” a suggestion by his sister that his Brexit strategy could be being driven by the his hedge fund backers.

Rachel Johnson claimed last week that the tactics “could be from – who knows – people who have invested billions in shorting the pound” in the expectation of a no-deal Brexit”.