Taoiseach calls for new UK-EU customs union
THE EU and Britain should look at creating a customs union similar to the one the EU shares with Turkey should Britain insist on a hard Brexit, Leo Varadkar has said.
On his first visit as Taoiseach to the North, Mr Varadkar repeated his hope that Brexit would not ultimately happen but he said, if it did proceed, it would be in no one’s interests to create trading barriers.
He said if the UK opts for a hard Brexit which sees it exit the EU customs union and the single market, he would like to see a bilateral EU-UK customs union.
‘After all, we have one with Turkey. Surely we can have one with the United Kingdom?’ he said.
In regard to the single market, he suggested the UK could rejoin the European Free Trade Association, which consists of the non-EU states of Norway, Iceland, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. The UK was a member of EFTA before it joined the EU in 1973.
‘And if this cannot be agreed now, then perhaps we can have a transition period during which the UK stays in the single market and customs union while these things are worked out,’ he added.
Mr Varadkar also called on unionist parties to get involved in the push for a soft Brexit.
While Sinn Féin and the SDLP have demanded that the North secures special designated EU status post Brexit to reflect the difficulties that trading restrictions would pose at the border, unionists are wary of the idea.
They claim it would differentiate Northern Ireland from the rest of the UK and said the idea is being used by nationalists and republicans as a way to advance their united Ireland agenda.
But Mr Varadkar said it is in unionists’ interests to lobby for a soft Brexit, stressing that if the United Kingdom stays in the customs union and stays in the single market ‘that takes away any need for any sort special arrangement or bespoke solution for Northern Ireland at all’.
Mr Varadkar again moved to dispel the suggestion that the Irish Government favoured making the Irish Sea the EU/UK border. ‘It’s not a proposal that I am tabling and I wouldn’t like us to be in that position,’ he said.
And he again challenged Brexiteers to explain why a hard Brexit, with trade tariffs and customs restrictions, would benefit either the UK or Europe.
‘If they can’t come up with those solutions, well then maybe they might talk about mine, because the ones I have put forward are workable,’ he said.
The Taoiseach said he was operating on the basis that Brexit would happen, but that he was still hopeful the UK would change its mind and remain in the EU.
He said that throughout political history, there was a precedence of people changing their minds.
‘There are plenty of precedents in political history of people changing their mind and making different decisions. Of course I would hope the UK might think again and might decide to remain in the European Union, but I’m not operating on that basis.’
Meanwhile, Gerry Adams has said he intends to lead Sinn Féin into the next general election.
This comes amid ongoing speculation over when he will call time on his long political career. In a newspaper interview yesterday, Sinn Féin’s deputy leader Mary Lou McDonald signalled a willingness to be a junior partner in any future government after the next poll, rather than striking its own confidence-and-supply deal with a new administration.
After meeting the Taoiseach for talks in Belfast, Mr Adams was asked whether the fact Ms McDonald had outlined the Sinn Féin attitude to coalition suggested she would be the one leading the party into the next campaign.
Louth TD Mr Adams rejected that theory.
‘What Mary Lou did was spell out our position and it accurately reflects the Sinn Féin view that, if we get a mandate in the next election, the general election in the south, to be in government, then we will seek to negotiate a programme for government and bring that forward to an ard fheis for endorsement if there’s agreement about it,’ he said.
He added that the current Dáil ‘only works for Fine Gael and especially Fianna Fáil, and it is my intention, as I stand here, to lead Sinn Féin into the next election’.
‘My solutions are workable’
AFTER last week’s Brexit broadside by Leo Varadkar, following which the DUP accused him of megaphone diplomacy, the Taoiseach was in slightly more conciliatory mode on his visit to Belfast yesterday. The language might have been more measured, but the message essentially was the same.
The time for lip service on the border has long passed and we need to hear concrete plans for what the island of Ireland will look like post-Brexit.
Leo Varadkar raised some interesting templates that could be followed, especially the customs deal Turkey enjoys with the European Union, and that is a model that might be followed. This, and the Norwegian form of engagement with the EU, certainly are good starting positions British negotiators could employ in their dealings with Michel Barnier, the EU official overseeing the divorce.
Of course, the Taoiseach also reiterated his hope that the UK might abandon the idea of a hard Brexit and, at the very least, remain in the EU customs union. That, though, sadly seems like wishful thinking at this stage.
But with the British in disarray and, it seems, almost every one of Theresa May’s cabinet ministers having his or her unique idea of how the UK should proceed, these at least are ideas they should consider.
Whatever happens, Mr Varadkar is following the correct tack. Last week, he was resolute and emphatic, and, while holding strictly to that position would be foolish, it was no harm to clearly set out Ireland’s stall.
We must be clear. Despite the EU’s insistence that the Irish question be addressed satisfactorily before the detail of the divorce can be negotiated, no-one really will be in our corner unless we let them know precisely where that corner is, and what it looks like.