Theresa May calls for new deal with EU on Irish border
British Prime Minister Theresa May on Friday called on the European Union to strike a new deal to prevent a hard border in Northern Ireland and demanded Brussels quickly respond to her ‘white paper’ plan to avoid a damaging no-deal Brexit.
In a speech to politicians and business leaders in Belfast’s docklands, May accepted a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic once Britain leaves the bloc would be “almost inconceivable”, but dismissed the EU’s current plan as “unworkable”.
Instead, May said the EU must engage with her Brexit ‘white paper’ policy document released earlier this month, which proposes negotiating the closest possible links for trade in goods to protect businesses and to fulfil a commitment to avoid having infrastructure on the border.
It is “now for the EU to respond. Not simply to fall back onto previous positions which have already been proven unworkable. But to evolve their position in kind,” she told the audience at Belfast’s Waterfront Hall.
Still reeling from the resignation last week of senior cabinet members and with her own political future uncertain, May will also call on the European Union to give some ground in talks on Britain’s departure from the bloc.
May flew to Northern Ireland on Thursday for a two-day visit to see up close the troubled British region’s frontier with EU-member Ireland, which has become one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the negotiations.
After quitting the cabinet, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson singled out her treatment of the border as the biggest mistake of her negotiations with the EU for a smooth exit from the bloc next year.
May’s Brexit ‘white paper’, the policy document which prompted Johnson’s resignation, proposes negotiating the closest possible commercial links for goods trade to protect businesses and to fulfil a commitment to avoid having infrastructure on the border.
The 500-kilometre (300 mile) border has been largely invisible since army checkpoints were taken down after a 1998 peace deal ended three decades of violence between the region’s pro-British majority and an Irish nationalist minority. Over 3,600 died.
“The economic and constitutional dislocation of a formal ‘third country’ customs border within our own country is something I will never accept and I believe no British Prime Minister could ever accept,” May asserted.
The Irish government, which has said it has concerns about May’s white paper, on Friday said a backstop was essential, but could be renegotiated.
“The only thing that could replace this current form of a backstop is, No. 1 something which is better; No. 2 something which is agreed and No. 3 something that would be legally operable,” Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe told RTE radio.
The EU has warned business to get ready for Britain crashing out of the bloc without agreed terms, although officials and diplomats still think some kind of deal is more likely than not, if only because the cost for both sides would be so high.
While May is trying to convince Brussels to make concessions on Northern Ireland, she is also trying to shore up support in her Conservative Party after her white paper proposals sparked cabinet level resignations last week.
After quitting, former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson singled out her treatment of the border as the biggest mistake of her negotiations with the EU for a smooth exit from the bloc next year and risked leaving Britain in a “miserable, permanent limbo”.
In her speech May hit back, dismissing Johnson’s suggestion that technology could allow customs checks without physical infrastructure, saying such systems did not yet exist.
Source: France24
