Heseltine: Don’t give one inch on North soft border
THERESA May is facing a future political crisis as Brexiteers will never accept the ‘backstop’ border deal agreement, British political figures have said.
An anti-Brexit group including former deputy prime ministers Michael Heseltine and Nick Clegg, and ex-minister Andrew Adonis, met in Dublin yesterday, warning that armed police could man the border.
They warned the British prime minister cannot keep pretending the UK can leave the Customs Union and Single Market while still avoiding a hard border.
Mr Heseltine, a Conservative who sits in the House of Lords, said: ‘Nobody has a serious answer to the questions. Nobody has a solution that stands up to any sort of examination. Therefore the easy thing for politicians is to have a few phrases and say, “Yes, we’ll sort that tomorrow”.
‘What we’re doing, little by little, is moving towards the reintroduction of borders. I know, whatever politicians say, borders need to be policed. I know the only way you can police borders in a modern society is with armed policemen.’
Mr Adonis, a Labour peer in the Lords, said the public opinion in the UK has swung against Brexit, and that opposition to it will increase once Mrs May publishes her withdrawal Bill. He said: ‘There’s at least a 50:50 chance now that we will end up holding a referendum on the prime minister’s terms on Brexit.’
Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg predicted the EU will be unwavering in its support of Ireland, meaning the UK will either have to collapse the talks or concede to remaining in the Single Market and Customs Union. ‘There’s going to be collision between the logical consequences of Theresa May’s own interpretation of Brexit,’ he said.
Mr Clegg said that signing up to the backstop while maintaining a desire to leave the Customs Union and Single Market was a ‘mutually inconsistent’ position. He said the ‘collision’ has been deferred following the announcement of the deal by EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and UK Brexit minister David Davis but ‘it hasn’t remotely gone away’. Mr Clegg said: ‘June looks like it will be a vital, if not the most pivotal month in these Brexit negotiations because, at that point, the EU will remain very supportive of Ireland’s position, then there will be a head-to-head collision caused by Theresa May’s refusal to confront that.
‘In the end that collision will either lead to a collapse in the talks, or an acknowledgement by Theresa May that she’s got it wrong and the United Kingdom will need to stay in the Customs Union and Single Market.’
He said the progress of talks so far – in which the UK has capitulated on key areas – pointed to a positive outcome for Ireland.
He said: ‘So far the pattern is lots of brave, rather foolhardy talk from the British Brexit negotiators, followed by serial humiliation. I strongly suspect that will happen big time on this issue.’
But Mr Heseltine warned Dublin against conceding any ground on a soft border. He said: ‘My political instinct tells me that the first incident, and there will be an incident... intelligence services on both sides of the border will get to hear of some major infringement – it may be drugs, terrorist-related, arms-related, and therefore they will have to check the process and they’ll have to be armed. That will be the point at which the delusion of a soft border becomes a hard border.’