,
5 tweets,
1 min read
Read on Twitter
Juncker-Varadkar presser starting now. 
Juncker: ‘We’re in total agreement when it comes to all the questions relating to Brexit. Ireland won’t be left alone. We can’t reopen the discussion on the backstop. [May] knows the Commission is not prepared to reopen the issue.’
Varadkar says Ireland is ‘increasingly prepared’ for no deal but stresses it’s not a threat the EU or Ireland are making. He says: ‘It’s open to the UK to request an extension or revoke Article 50.’
Varadkar says he has concerns about the debate in the U.K. over alternative arrangements. He says there was only a majority for seeking them amongst MPs ‘because they can mean whatever you want them to mean’.
Juncker: ‘My working assumption isn’t that this concept of alternative arrangements are a plan. They can be put under meditation for the future, not for now. They can never replace the backstop. There’s no way to have a unilateral jumping out of the backstop.’
