Northern Ireland will stay in single market after Brexit, EU says

UK negotiators braced for major row over EU’s draft withdrawal agreement

UK negotiators have been warned that the EU draft withdrawal agreement will stipulate that Northern Ireland will, in effect, remain in the customs union and single market after Brexit to avoid a hard border.

The uncompromising legal language of the draft agreement is likely to provoke a major row, something all parties to the negotiations have been trying to avoid.

British officials negotiating in Brussels were told by their counterparts that there could be a “sunset clause” included in the legally binding text, which is due to be published in around two weeks. Such a legal device would make the text null and void at a future date should an unexpectedly generous free trade deal, or a hitherto unimagined technological solution emerge that could be as effective as the status quo in avoiding the need for border infrastructure.

As it stands, however, the UK is expected by Brussels to sign off on the text which will see Northern Ireland remain under EU law at the end of the 21-month transition period, wherever it is relevant to the north-south economy, and the requirements of the Good Friday agreement.

The move is widely expected to cause ructions within both the Conservative party and between the government and the Democratic Unionist party, whose 10 MPs give Theresa May her working majority in the House of Commons.

The UK will be put under even greater pressure to offer up a vision of the future relationship that will deliver for the entire UK economy, but the inability of that model to ensure frictionless trade is likely to be exposed. A meeting of the cabinet to discuss the Irish border on Wednesday failed to come to any significant conclusions.

“There will be no wriggle room for the UK government,” said Philippe Lambert MEP, the leader of the Greens in the European parliament, who was briefed in Strasbourg earlier this week by the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier. “We are going to state exactly what we mean by regulatory alignment in the legal text. It will be very clear. This might cause some problems in the UK – but we didn’t create this mess.”

Barnier has repeatedly warned that Brexit, with the red-lines chosen by Theresa May, means barriers to trade in the form of checks at the border.

In Northern Ireland, the UK government’s contradictory position of seeking to leave the customs union and the single market and yet wanting frictionless trade is said to present not only a danger to trade but a risk to peace.

Earlier this week, George Hamilton, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, warned that any infrastructure at the border, however light, would become a target for armed groups and pose a danger to his officers. “The terrorists only have to be lucky once and get a result with catastrophic consequences,” he said.

The EU’s proposed text is said to be the logical consequence of the agreement reached between the European commission and the UK government in December, to allow the talks to move on from the issues of citizens rights, the financial settlement and the Irish border.

The UK government had said that “in the absence of agreed solutions, the United Kingdom will maintain full alignment with those rules of the internal market and the customs union which, now or in the future, support North-South cooperation, the all-island economy and the protection of the 1998 [Good Friday] agreement”.

Despite initial protests from the DUP, the unionists were bought off with paragraph 50 of the joint agreement, in which the British government promised to ensure that there would be no barriers to trade between the British mainland and Northern Ireland.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, has suggested that the whole of the UK could remain in regulatory alignment with the EU. The DUP trumpeted the concession as evidence that Northern Ireland and Great Britain would be leaving the EU on the same terms.

Those commitments to the DUP are regarded by the EU, however, as an internal arrangement for the British government outside the scope of the legal text.

Speaking at the Policy Forum for Ireland conference in Dublin, Michael D’Arcy, Ireland’s minister of state for finance, public expenditure and reform, said of the commitments to the DUP: “It is not a matter for the Irish government.”

John McGrane, the director general of the British Irish Chamber of Commerce, said there was still a delusional sense within some government departments in the UK that it would be “sorted out”. He claimed there was “an underlying sense of entitlement” that Britain could carry on as it was because it was so important.

“Britain has got zero out of the negotiations so far,” he said. “Does it keep getting zero or does is salvage something? Last week I was at a gathering organised by one of the UK government departments, no disrespect, but it was essentially designed to reinforce the notion that it would be alright, and it was really important that people stood up and said no it might not.”

An EU official involved in the negotiations said the situation in Ireland exposed the “infeasibility” of Brexit on the prime minister’s terms. The source added: “These commitments will come to haunt the British.”

piston broke wrote:That is a long article to not mention Arlene Foster and her stance that NI will not have a separate deal to mainland UK.

piston broke wrote:That is a long article to not mention Arlene Foster and her stance that NI will not have a separate deal to mainland UK.

"The move is widely expected to cause ructions within both the Conservative party and between the government and the Democratic Unionist party, whose 10 MPs give Theresa May her working majority in the House of Commons."

dsr wrote:We could start by discussing the thread title - what your post says is that there is a proposal that Northern Ireland will stay in the single market. It's not the same thing.

Sidney1st wrote:So is it a definite or still a proposal?

Nothing has been signed or declared yet has it?

martin_p wrote:It looks like it's an EU 'red line'. I think it's an attempt to get the UK to come up with an actual answer on this rather than just make bland statements, i.e. unless you can think of anything better that actually works this is what is happening.

martin_p wrote:I don’t think it’s being reported as fact, just as what EU negotiators are saying.

Lancasterclaret wrote:Don't see how this one can fly, but if the DUP are serious about the NI economy, they could make NI the place to be after Brexit if they agreed to this.

dsr wrote:
One thing that the UK can do is to declare that there will be no border posts as far as we're concerned. I'm sure the UK can handle the inward smuggling problem via other means. Petty smuggling is barely relevant in the grand scheme of Brexit, and there was plenty of that in the pre-EEC and early-EEC days which didn't cause global crashes.

nil_desperandum wrote:Would this be compatible with WTO rules? I think it unlikely.

dsr wrote:I don't know how micro the WTO rules are re. the manning of physical border posts, or even if any such rules exist. Can you point me to a link?

nil_desperandum wrote:No. You can google it yourself. I asked the question. Your idea might not break WTO rules, (I honestly don't know), but somehow I doubt it. If it were possible then why hasn't Davis suggested it?

lucs86 wrote:How long can the Tories delay this decision for? It seems like every viable answer is unworkable at the moment because they're reliant on the DUP for their majority. I reckon they're planning on doing nothing with it for as long as possible (including transition period) waiting till the time's right for a GE, when they'll plan to shrug off the DUP and tell them what's going to happen.

Sidney1st wrote:They've either delayed it on purpose OR they were waiting for confirmation of the EU's stance on it.

You can pick which side of the fence you're on to suit your political leanings.

lucs86 wrote:I don't know a lot about this, but I don't think there's any stance that the EU will take that would change anything is there? The DUP hold all the cards from our side, they won't have a land border to the south or a border in the Irish Sea (won't be treated any differently to the rest of the UK), the only thing that could work for them is a customs union, soft Brexit type deal and that won't wash over here whilst the hard Brexit lot hold influence. May will be held to ransom by two factions wanting opposing Brexits, she's either got to get rid of the DUP or the hard Brexit wing of her own party, so it's going to need a GE before there's movement. How else could it go?

brexit wrote:if we give the Jocks, paddy's and Taffs independence none of this matters.

lucs86 wrote:I don't know a lot about this, but I don't think there's any stance that the EU will take that would change anything is there? The DUP hold all the cards from our side, they won't have a land border to the south or a border in the Irish Sea (won't be treated any differently to the rest of the UK), the only thing that could work for them is a customs union, soft Brexit type deal and that won't wash over here whilst the hard Brexit lot hold influence. May will be held to ransom by two factions wanting opposing Brexits, she's either got to get rid of the DUP or the hard Brexit wing of her own party, so it's going to need a GE before there's movement. How else could it go?

Sidney1st wrote:They've either delayed it on purpose OR they were waiting for confirmation of the EU's stance on it.

You can pick which side of the fence you're on to suit your political leanings.

brexit wrote:No I said let them be independent that is not the same as "giving" them to Ireland.

JohnMcGreal wrote:This is the one circle that I can't see being squared.

Even if (and it's a really big if) you could persuade Northern Ireland to remain in the SM/CU in order to prevent a border on the island, other parts of the UK will (quite rightly) demand the same exceptions.

If the UK leaves the SM/CU but Northern Ireland gets to stay in, why can't Scotland have the same arrangement? Then if Northern Ireland and Scotland can stay in the SM/CU, why can't the City of London have the same deal? It really is a can of worms whichever way you try and slice it.

The only three options which are certain to avoid a border in Ireland are:

1. The UK stays in the EU
2. The Republic of Ireland leaves the EU along with UK
3. The UK leaves the EU but stays in the customs union and retains access to the single market (soft Brexit)

Beyond those scenarios, I have no idea how this issue can be resolved without some form of border going up in Ireland.

Sidney1st wrote:Could anyone confirm if I should get myself an EIRE passport?
I haven't bothered yet.

Sidney1st wrote:You implied the Tories were potentially doing nothing on purpose.

I just gave a different view.
Both sides have gone back and forth over this for a while, but the EU have finally drawn a line in the sand so to speak.
Until one side did that neither could move forward with it.
The Tories possibly did drag it out on purpose, but with out any real confirmation of what the EU wanted what could they do to speed things up?

No point pouring money and energy into something to only be told by the other side that it's opposite to what they want.

Another GE will just be a disaster and the country as a whole probably isn't interested in another right now.
They just need to put their grown up pants on, sit down and deal with the issue properly.

Tribesmen wrote:Wait until you see the price of an Irish passport

Sidney1st wrote:Not much different to a UK one is it?
I just need to faff about with some paperwork.

aggi wrote:The passport isn't too expensive, it's registering a foreign birth (if your birth isn't already registered in Ireland) that costs. About €1,000 or so I think.