May under fire from all sides
Customs union main obstacle in Brexit debate
PRO-BREXIT lawmakers heaped pressure on British Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday over her customs plans with the European Union, calling on her to drop what some say is her preferred proposal.
May’s decision to leave the EU’s customs union, which sets tariffs for goods imported into the bloc, has become one of the main flashpoints in the Brexit debate in Britain, pitting companies and pro-EU campaigners against a vocal group of hardline eurosceptic lawmakers.
With the added pressure of trying to prevent the return of a “hard” border in Ireland and find something Brussels might agree to, May has delayed putting any firm plans for future customs arrangements on the table, hoping to plot a route that could at least please more than one side.
Her spokesman said those ideas were evolving.
Just hours before May was due to meet her so-called Brexit war cabinet of 11 ministers, the pro-Brexit lawmakers called on her to drop one of her proposals for a customs partnership which would see Britain essentially act as the EU’s tariff collector.
Members of the European Research Group, a group of Brexit lawmakers in May’s Conservative Party, said they were not issuing her an ultimatum with their demands, rather presenting their argument that such a customs partnership would not work.
“It is more of a statement of our position, with supporting arguments,” a member of the ERG said.
May is not only under pressure at home. She also faces increasingly urgent demands from Brussels to come up with a customs plan to avoid a return to a hard border between British-ruled Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
There are fears that reintroducing checks on what will be Britain’s only land border with the EU could reignite sectarian violence.
May has put off committing to a single plan, offering Brussels two options – the customs partnership or a technology-based streamlined customs arrangement, both of which EU negotiators have dismissed.
In parliament, May said there were a number of ways to solve the customs issue, in what seemed to suggest that her government could be looking beyond the two proposals already made.
Asked whether there were other options, her spokesman said: “The prime minister said there are a number of ways to proceed.”
The easiest way to solve the problem, May’s critics say, is to stay in the customs union or negotiate a new one along the lines proposed by the main opposition Labour Party. – Reuters