UK has offered 'nothing credible' on Brexit backstop - Irish deputy PM

The UK had still not put forward any “credible” proposals on replacing the Brexit backstop, Ireland's deputy taoiseach said on Friday as Britain said it wanted to “step up the tempo” on talks with the European Union.

The UK said its negotiators would meet with their EU counterparts twice a week during September after prime minister Boris Johnson suspended parliament for five weeks to stop his opponents thwarting a no-deal Brexit.

“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 the backstop. If that changes, great, we will look at it in Dublin, but more importantly it can be the basis of a discussion in Brussels," Simon Coveney, who is also Ireland's foreign minister, told reporters on arriving for talks in Helsinki.

“But it has got to be credible. It can’t simply be this notion that ‘look, we must have the backstop removed and we will solve this problem in the future negotiation’ without any credible way of doing that.”

Johnson demanded that the backstop, designed to prevent a hard border between Ireland and the Northern Irish counties ruled by Britain, be removed from the withdrawal agreement or the UK would leave on October 31 without a deal.

The backstop would keep the UK in an EU customs area, until both sides agree on other arrangements and would start automatically if the two sides fail to find alternatives during trade talks.

In Brussels, European Commission spokeswoman Mina Andreeva called on Johnson to produce “concrete proposals”.

“We have always said from our side that our doors remain open and we have demonstrated, in fact, our willingness to work 24/7 throughout this long process.”

“Our position remains that we will need to first see proposals, concrete proposals, from the UK government that are compatible with the withdrawal agreement before we can take these discussions further.