North and UK ‘will be separate’
BRITAIN will become a separate country from the North for goods travelling there, the UK attorney general has said in a confidential report.
The revelation, made in the AG’s legal advice to the British government that Theresa May tried to keep secret, has infuriated the DUP MPs who say the advice has confirmed their worst fears that the North will stay in the EU’s Customs Union and Single Market while Britain stays out.
The British AG’s advice reads: ‘The implications of NI remaining in the Single Market for goods, while GB is not, is that for regulatory purposes GB is essentially treated as a third country by NI for goods passing from GB to NI.’
Nigel Dodds, the DUP party leader in the Westminster parliament, branded the advice ‘devastating’, and warned that Mrs May had broken her promises to the party.
‘No wonder they tried to hide the legal advice,’ he added.
The British prime minister was forced to publish the advice on the withdrawal deal yesterday, after her government was found in contempt of parliament for failing to do so.
The finding was a mark of the chaos Brexit has caused, being the first time in modern history a UK government has been found in contempt of parliament.
The advice has also given rise to the belief that the UK will remain chained to the EU indefinitely, with the backstop applying ‘unless and until’ a means of avoiding a hard border is found through a future trade deal.
The advice said it would remain ‘even if parties are still negotiating many years later and even if the parties believe that talks have clearly broken down and there is not prospect of a future relationship agreement’.
Boris Johnson blamed the EU for the debacle claiming: ‘They will keep us in permanent captivity as a memento mori, as a reminder to the world of what happens to all those who try to leave the EU. This is a recipe for blackmail and it’s open to any member of the EU to name its price for Britain’s right to leave the backstop. The Spanish will make a play for Gibraltar, the French for our fish and our bankers, the Germans may want concessions on the free movement of EU nationals.’