The British government has ruled out a “technical” extension of the Brexit deadline to give parliament time to ratify a new deal.
UK chief negotiator David Frost held meetings with EU officials this week, the first in a stepped-up programme of talks that will see him return to Brussels every week.
A leaked EU diplomatic note seen by The Independent says that during the talks Mr Frost privately ruled out a “technical” extension to talks – which had been suggested given the time pressures on MPs.
Boris Johnson has said publicly the UK will be a leaving the EU on 31 October “do or die”, with or without a deal.
Mr Frost is said to have assured EU officials that ratification of a deal would be possible in the second half of October – despite the prime minister’s decision to reduce the time available to MPs by proroguing parliament.
The EU is understood to have contingency plans to allow the European Parliament to ratify the agreement in those circumstances.
It comes as Irish foreign minister Simon Coveney said the UK had presented “nothing credible” to replace the controversial backstop at the round of negotiations this week.
“I’m sure if he [Boris Johnson] wanted five days of negotiations a week that the EU would be OK with that. Michel Barnier is there as the chief negotiator for the EU for that purpose,” Mr Coveney said during a visit to Helsinki.
“He has a team that’s ready to go, we all want to get a deal. But at the moment nothing credible has come from the British government in the context of an alternative to he backstop.
“If that changes, great, we’ll look at it in Dublin but more important it can be the basis of a discussion in Brussels. But it’s got to be credible – it can’t simply be this notion that look, we must have the backstop removed and we’ll solve this problem in the future negotiation without any credible way of doing that.
“That’s not going to fly and I think it’s important that we’re all honest about that.”
The EU diplomatic note also says Mr Frost downplayed the decision of the prime minister to prorogue parliament, arguing that it was normal procedure.
