Michel Barnier rejects May's UK-wide Brexit backstop plan

Michel Barnier said the backstop offer made over Northern Ireland in March was ‘exceptional’ and could not be extended.The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, has rejected the suggestion that the whole of the UK could temporarily stay in the customs union and elements of the single market to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland after Brexit.“Backstop means backstop,” Barnier told reporters in Brussels, as he also insisted that the demand by David Davis, t