EU wants progress on Irish border
THE EU is pressing for “substantive progress” from Britain on the future of the Irish border in time for a crunch European Council summit just six weeks away.
Chief negotiator Michel Barnier told ministers from the remaining 27 member states that “little progress” had been made on the issues of Ireland and governance since the Council last met in March.
The comments came amid continuing uncertainty over the Government’s preferred option for customs arrangements on the Irish border after Brexit, with a meeting of Theresa May’s “war cabinet” thought unlikely to unite behind a solution when they meet on Tuesday.
Members of two ministerial working groups spent Monday discussing possible tweaks to the “customs partnership” and “maximum facilitation” plans which have divided Mrs May’s Cabinet, while the Prime Minister herself briefed Tory MPs on details of the two options.
Boris Johnson - a backer of the “max fac” option, using technology to minimise customs delays - sought to play down reports of a rift with the Prime Minister after he branded the customs partnership “crazy”.
The Foreign Secretary batted away suggestions that he should consider resigning, insisting that he regarded the PM’s vision of a Britain outside the customs union as “the way forward”.
“What we need to do is, as she said, come out of the customs union in such a way as to enable us to have frictionless trade with no hard border in Northern Ireland and to do unhindered, unimpeded free-trade deals with the rest of the world,” said Mr Johnson.
“We think that is possible, she thinks that is possible, so that is the way forward.”
But the UK Government’s hopes of settling on a scheme acceptable to Brussels were dealt a blow when Bulgaria - the current holder of the European Council’s six-month presidency said that neither option would avoid the need for a hard border.
Speaking after Mr Barnier’s address to the General Affairs Council, Bulgarian deputy prime minister Ekaterina Zaharieva said: “What the UK proposed doesn’t mean there is no hard border. Their proposals mean hard borders, unfortunately.”
Prominent eurosceptic Tory Jacob Rees-Mogg praised the PM’s “straight bat” approach.
Mr Rees-Mogg told LBC Radio that Mrs May was “the Geoffrey Boycott of negotiations”, saying: “She is playing a straight bat, she isn’t giving a great deal away.”