Neither Ireland nor the European Union would ever sign up to a backstop agreement to keep the Irish border open after Brexit that could be ended unilaterally by Britain, Ireland’s foreign minister said on Monday.

The sides in the negotiations have signaled progress on agreeing customs arrangements for an emergency Irish border fix but differences persist on the lifespan of the so-called “backstop”.

“The Irish position remains consistent and v[ery] clear that a ‘time-limited backstop’ or a backstop that could be ended by UK unilaterally would never be agreed to by Ireland or the European Union,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said.

“These ideas are not backstops at all + don’t deliver on previous UK commitments,” he added on Twitter.

Coveney made his comment after Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that Prime Minister Theresa May’s Brexit Minister Dominic Raab had privately demanded the right to pull Britain out of the backstop after three months.

With just five months until Britain is due to exit the EU, May has yet to nail down a divorce deal, with the Irish border insurance arrangement to keep open the border between British-ruled Northern Ireland and EU member state Ireland still the oustanding issue.

Cautious optimism that a deal between the EU and London may be in the offing has also been kept in check by the reality that such an agreement might not pass the British parliament.

Coveney’s message quickly won endorsement from the EU’s deputy Brexit negotiator, Sabine Weyand, who reacted by saying: “Still necessary to repeat this, it…

Prince Charles acknowledged Britain’s role in the slave trade on Monday calling it an appalling atrocity that had “left an indelible stain on the history of our world”.

In a speech in Ghana, which served as a major hub where African slaves were held before being shipped away, most across the Atlantic, the heir-to-the-British throne said the “profound injustice” of the past could never be forgotten.

“At Osu Castle on Saturday, it was especially important to me – as indeed it was on my first visit there forty-one years ago – that I should acknowledge the most painful chapter of Ghana’s relations with the nations of Europe, including the United Kingdom,” Charles said.

“The appalling atrocity of the slave trade, and the unimaginable suffering it caused, left an indelible stain on the history of our world.”

Britain abolished the trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807 although the full abolition of slavery did not follow for another generation.

Two days ago the prince visited Christiansborg Castle in Osu which originally operated as a Danish slave trade fort and from where it is estimated more than 1.5 million Africans were traded.

The castle later became the seat of the Ghanaian Government after the country’s independence from Britain in 1957.

“While Britain can be proud that it later led the way in the abolition of this shameful trade, we have a shared responsibility to ensure that the abject horror of slavery is never forgotten,” Charles said in his speech.

The prince and his wife Camilla are on the second leg of a tour of three African nations, having…

The United Kingdom is confident that it is on the verge of reaching an agreement with the European Union to give London’s vast financial centre access to EU markets after Brexit, Britain’s financial services minister John Glen said on Monday.

Home to the world’s highest number of banks and largest commercial insurance market, the City of London and its sister district in Canary Wharf are scrambling to prepare for Britain’s departure from the European Union, the biggest challenge the UK financial sector has faced since the 2007-2009 financial crisis.

Britain’s financial services sector, the biggest source of its exports and tax revenue, has been struggling to find a way to preserve the existing flow of trading after it leaves the EU.

The government is looking for an improved form of the EU’s existing system of financial market access known as ‘equivalence’ – a basic form of market access dependent on rules being kept broadly similar and the basis for the EU’s relationship with countries such as the United States.

“I am extremely confident we will reach an imminent deal,” Glen told a financial services conference in London. “There is common ground. That is why we are increasingly positive on the expectation of reaching a deal.”

Talks over a broader deal are mired in a disagreement over an Irish “backstop” – an insurance policy to ensure there will be no return to a hard border on the island of Ireland if a future trading relationship is not in place in time.

But negotiators are close to agreeing wording on financial services that would go into a…