Mubasher: UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that a Brexit deal could still win the approval of lawmakers, if the European Union (EU) agrees to remove the Irish border from the Withdrawal Agreement.

In a letter to European Council President Donald Tusk late Monday, Premier Johnson described the Irish backstop, the most contentious part of the current Brexit deal, as “unviable.”

The Irish backstop is virtually an insurance policy to keep the borders between the UK’s Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, an EU member, after the UK’s exit from the EU, under which Northern Ireland would remain under the bloc’s customs union and single market.

The provision was rejected already by the UK parliament three times, but Brussels has insisted that it should be part of any new agreement.

With the Irish backstop removed, the current transition agreement could still be approved by a majority of the House of Commons ahead of 31 October, the departure deadline, Johnson suggested.

However, Tusk responded via Twitter on Tuesday, re-affirming the EU’s stance on the mater, which deems the backstop necessary to avoid harder borders, “unless an alternative is found.”