ec President says call for removal without alternative proposal signals support for hard border Donald Tusk has rejected Boris Johnson’s request to strip the backstop out of the Brexit deal, with a thinly-veiled message that the British government was refusing to admit the lack of realistic alternatives. ...Tusk wrote: “The backstop is an insurance to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland unless and until an alternative is found. Those against the backstop and not proposing realistic alternatives in fact support re-establishing a border. Even if they do not admit it.”...A spokeswoman for the commission welcomed the UK...