Fox says Irish border talks should wait until progress on trade deal

● Trade secretary says solution can’t be found until future relationship is resolved

Resolving the issue of Northern Ireland’s border after leaving the European Union cannot be completed until talks on a trade deal with Brussels have progressed, Liam Fox has said.

The International Trade Secretary said a final position could not be reached until it was known what the “end state” of the UK-EU relationship after Brexit would be, prompting an Irish MEP to claim he was holding the process to ransom.

Dr Fox’s intervention came as Dublin put fresh pressure on the government to accept a solution which would see either the whole of the UK or just Northern Ireland remain in the single market and customs union as a deadline in the Brexit process approaches.

Theresa May has been given until 4 December to come up with further proposals on issues including the border, the Brexit divorce bill and citizens’ rights if European leaders are to give the green light to moving on to the next phase of negotiations covering the future relationship between the UK and Brussels.

Ireland’s prime minister Leo Varadkar has called for a written guarantee that there will be no return to a “hard border” between Northern Ireland and the Republic as a result of Brexit.

One way of achieving that would be for continued single market and customs union membership – a stance rejected by the UK.

Dr Fox said: “We don’t want there to be a hard border, but the UK is going to be leaving the customs union and the single market”

He told Sky News’s Sunday with Niall Paterson: “We have always had exceptions for Ireland – whether it’s in our voting rights, our rights of residence in the UK, we have always accepted a certain asymmetry and that will have to be part of whatever agreement we come to with the European Union, but we can’t come to a final answer to the Irish question until we get an idea of the end state.

Irish MEP Mairead Mcguinness, a member of Taoiseach Mr Varadkar’s Fine Gael party, said she was “troubled” by Dr Fox’s comments.

0 Liam Fox insists the UK will be leaving the customs union and single market