Ireland's Coveney: "Time-limited backstop" would never be agreed by the EU

Ireland's foreign minister Simon Coveney comments in a tweet

The full tweet reads:

The Irish position remains consistent and v clear⁩ that a "time-limited backstop" or a backstop that could be ended by UK unilaterally would never be agreed to by IRE or EU. These ideas are not backstops at all + don't deliver on previous UK commitments ⁦⁦#Brexit

This isn't anything new as the common sticking point here is that the EU wants things to be open-ended while the UK wants to stamp a date to it; or at least parliament wants to. There's been good hints of optimism lately on a Brexit deal- parts of it at least - but when it comes to the key sticking point here, I'm still not sure how they can find a workaround unless further concessions are made.

The pound is bid as we get into European trading now as cable moves back up above 1.3000 to 1.3020. EUR/GBP is back down to 0.8748 currently and GBP/JPY is up to 147.40.