EU URGED TO CLARIFY POSITION ON BORDER WORKABLE SOLUTION NEEDED, SAYS DODDS
THE DUP has called on the EU to clarify its plans for a Brexit backstop as Sinn Fein accused Theresa May of showing “scant regard” for Ireland in her negotiations.
Diane Dodds MEP said it was unclear whether Brussels’ proposals would represent a serious departure from the EU’s “dogmatic” stance or were “simply intended to dress up existing elements of its plan”.
Mrs Dodds was speaking as Mrs May told the BBC’s Panorama programme that MPs will have a choice between her proposed deal with the EU or no deal at all.
The Prime Minister criticised a plan by Tory Brexiteers to resolve the border issue, claiming it would create a “hard border 20km inside Ireland”.
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson described attempts to resolve the issue so far as a “constitutional abomination”.
Mrs Dodds stressed her party’s opposition to Northern Ireland remaining tied to EU rules and “cut adrift from the rest of the UK post-Brexit”.
She said: “We will not countenance anything which affects the constitutional position of
Northern Ireland within the Union, creates barriers to and within the UK internal market or erects barriers in customs or regulation.”
She said at every stage the DUP had made this clear to the Prime Minister and Mr Barnier.
“The job of finding a workable, practical and mutual solution remains incomplete,” she said.
Mrs Dodds said suggestions the EU was considering technology-based solutions were a positive, if belated, development.
“However, this will become null and void if based only on the EU goal of ensuring Northern Ireland remains in a common regulatory and customs areas inside the EU,” she added.
Sinn Fein vice-president Michelle O’Neill said: “Theresa May’s focus remains on the civil war in her own party instead of focusing on negotiations with the EU.
“More than 18 months into these negotiations and with time running out, Theresa May still shows scant regard for Ireland, for rights, our economy or our agreements.
“The Irish Government, as an EU member state which is party to this negotiation, has to stand firm on the backstop agreed between the British Government and the EU last December, as this is the only insurance policy the people of the North can rely upon.”
UUP MEP Jim Nicholson said unionists’ first priority must be that “the constitutional integrity” of the Union wasn’t “diminished by Brexit — deal or no deal”.
He said: “In March the EU produced a draft legal text on the backstop that would see Northern Ireland separated from the rest of the UK.
“While the Government quite rightly ruled out such a suggestion immediately, it is worrying that this interpretation of the December agreement by the EU was allowed to take hold.”
SDLP MLA Claire Hanna accused Mr Johnson of displaying the “little Englander mindset that is causing the ultimate act of political, social and economic self-harm across these islands”.