EU to secure May’s leadership with MAJOR Brexit concession over Northern Ireland border

The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier is secretly planning to accept a frictionless Irish border after Brexit, and therefore allow the use of technology to minimise border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

کد خبر: ۸۳۴۶۹۸

تاریخ: ۲۶ شهريور ۱۳۹۷ - ۰۸:۲۲

Brussel’s sign of flexibility was outlined in confidential diplomatic notes detailing talks held between EU ambassadors last Wednesday.

The confidential document, seen by The Times, stated: “The biggest unsolved problem is Northern Ireland.

“There is a political mobilisation in the UK in this regard.

“Therefore we are trying to clarify the EU position.”

At the meeting, which aimed at agreeing on a “revised draft of the Northern Ireland protocol”, Sabine Weyand, Mr Barnier’s deputy, told the other ambassadors: “The controls or checks only have to be organised in a way that would not endanger the EU single market.”

She added that “for the main part, these controls would not have to happen at a border”, accepting the argument of the British Government that technology could solve the issue of “checks” between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Additionally, the ambassadors agreed that the deal would exclusively be for Northern Ireland, in a bid to avoid Scottish Nationalists asking for the same protocol.

It says: “The solution is specifically phrased for Northern Ireland so that it is not applicable for Scotland. A UK concern.”

The Scottish First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, warned last summer that she intends to use the Northern Ireland ‘backstop’ plan as a model for Scotland.

The document added: “The EU wants a transit procedure or process.

“Controls could happen at the companies involved at either end of the transaction and they would just scan a label on board ships en route from Britain to Northern Ireland or the Irish Republic."

The document emerged the same day that former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson warned that Mrs May’s proposed Chequers deal would instigate “foreign rule” for “the first time since 1066”, in yet another attack on the disputed Brexit proposals.

Mr Johnson made the outspoken warning in his column for The Daily Telegraph.

He claimed: “If Chequers were adopted it would mean that for the first time since 1066 our leaders were deliberately acquiescing in foreign rule.

“There is no other country - large or small - that would accept such an arrangement.

“The whole thing is a constitutional abomination.”