Irish government refuses to engage in bilateral Brexit talks with Theresa May

There will be no bilateral talks between the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, who will only negotiate as part of the EU27 bloc

As Theresa May seeks to carve out a seemingly impossible pathway for her Brexit withdrawal agreement to pass through parliament, any hope of her amending the deal via direct talks with the Republic of Ireland have been quashed. Newspaper reports over the weekend had raised the prospect of the prime minister making a bilateral plea to Irish leader Leo Varadkar to remove the backstop, the aspect of the deal considered unpalatable by many of the 432 MPs who voted against May last week. However, the Taoiseach will remain loyal to the European Union and only negotiate as part of the overall bloc, according to the Republic's European affairs minister, Helen McEntee. "What we can't do and what we won't do, because we have not throughout this entire process, is engage in any kind of bilateral negotiations with the DUP or any other political party in Northern Ireland or the UK," McEntee told RTE's Morning Ireland programme on Monday. "This is a negotiation between the EU and the UK." Varadkar has sought to distance himself from the British government's worries in recent days, stating that the EU will offer reassurances and guarantees over the backstop but nonetheless cannot change the Brexit withdrawal agreement that was reached in November. "The inability to ratify the withdrawal agreement is a problem in Westminster, and we're really looking to them for a solution," he said. "But it has to be a proposal that we can accept. So it can't be a proposal that contradicts what is already in the withdrawal agreement."