Ireland urges May to rethink Brexit plans for Irish border

The Irish Republic’s EU commissioner has said that Dublin will “play tough to the end” over a hard Irish border crisis

(Photo: The Guardian)
(Photo: The Guardian)

The Irish Republic’s EU commissioner has said that Dublin will “play tough to the end” over a hard Irish border.

He has urged Theresa May to change her Brexit plans drastically to prevent a mounting crisis over the Irish border from derailing her hopes of a EU trade deal, and may threaten to use its EU veto.

The threat of a hard Irish border has emerged as one of three major obstacle to May’s aim of securing Brexit trade talks at a critical summit a few weeks away.  She has been given a few days to give stronger guarantees about the issue.

Phil Hogan, The EU’s agriculture commissioner, told the Observer that staying in the customs union would avoid there being a hard border on the island, something  Theresa May’s Cabinet and party are unlikely to accept.

 “If the UK or Northern Ireland remained in the EU customs union, or better still the single market, there would be no border issue,” he said. “That’s a very simple fact.”

The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which controls the balance of power at Westminster, has restated that there will be no effective moving of the border to the Irish Sea in an attempt to overcome the hard border problem. It said that Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK must not be different.

“We will not support any arrangements that create barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom or any suggestion that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will have to mirror European regulations." DUP leader Arlene Foster said.

Downing Street has said the whole of the UK will leave both the customs union and the single market when it leaves the EU.

The EU has given the UK Prime Minister until 4 December to come up with further proposals on issues including the border, and the Brexit divorce bill and citizens’ rights.

Suggestions for alternate arrangements have included a new partnership that would "align" customs approaches between the UK and the EU, resulting in "no customs border at all between the UK and Ireland".