European Council President Donald Tusk said on Tuesday that British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s demands to drop the Brexit backstop amounted to seeking a return to controls along the Irish border, Reuters reports.
Tusk was responding to a letter in which Johnson said the backstop – an insurance policy to preserve open borders on the island of Ireland after Britain leaves the EU – must be erased for Britain to ratify its stalled EU divorce treaty.
“The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border… Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border,” Tusk tweeted.
The comments were echoed by the European Commission, which said the backstop was the only way agreed so far by the bloc and the UK that would avoid the re-imposition of full Irish border controls. The EU has told Johnson it would not alter divorce terms.