The Irish government has urged Theresa May to put forward new proposals on the Ireland border question in writing to Brussels before the Conservative party conference in order to head off a collapse in Brexit negotiations.

The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, and the European affairs minister, Helen McEntee, have expressed deep frustration after May came “empty-handed” to Salzburg when the EU had offered compromises on Irish border checks they felt would address British political sensitivities.

McEntee said May was vague and had hinted that she could not deliver a British alternative to the EU’s proposal for the Irish backstop in time for the October summit.

“She didn’t exactly give a timeline, I’ll be very honest,“ McEntee told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland – referring to when May would deliver on a legal text for the Irish border backstop, which Brussels has been looking for since the joint agreement in December to ensure no hard border between Northern Ireland and the republic.



“She said it would be forthcoming. Obviously we know that the [Tory party] conference is coming up in a week and a half but the October summit is on very shortly after that so if you do the maths, it doesn’t give us very much time,” she added.

“So what we have asked is that they give this information, that it’s in written form, that it’s a legal document, because the backstop has to be a legal document and that they give it to the taskforce as quickly as possible, they are the experts on customs, experts in understanding and identifying if this could work whatever this proposal is.

“The time wasn’t specifically identified, but if you do the maths it is obviously very close to the wire,” said McEntee, barely concealing her frustration.

Varadkar confirmed on Thursday that the EU was reworking the existing backstop proposal by the bloc to say that agriculture and phytosanitary checks would be the only physical controls that would need to take place between Northern Ireland and Britain’s mainland.

Customs declarations would be done electronically and random customs checks for security and smuggling would continue on a level they do currently, minimising the changes post Brexit.

“Nobody is trying to dispute the constitutional status of Northern Ireland,” Varadkar said. “We need to get away from the idea of anyone trying to create a border between Northern Ireland and Great Britain. That’s not the EU’s objective.”

He also hinted at a long-rumoured “backstop to a backstop” offering London a political declaration as detailed as possible on post-Brexit ties, which would allow a clear, legally binding backstop in the withdrawal agreement but a strongly worded pledge in the future relationship document to ensure there was no regulatory differences between Northern Ireland and Britain.

The EU was clear that the backstop needed to be in the withdrawal agreement as a condition of a deal, but it felt it had demonstrated it was willing to compromise to address the political sensitivities in Britain.

“They showed willing and she showed nothing. You can’t have a negotiation when one side comes to the table empty-handed – and that is putting it politely,” said one source in Dublin.

On Thursday, the former Brexit secretary, David Davis, told the BBC the new proposals were a softening of the position of the EU, which he felt was coming closer to the position of the European Research Group of eurosceptic MPs, which has insisted the border could remain invisible with the help of technology.