Looks like it’s back to the drawing board for Theresa May and company.
Proposals from the UK government aimed at avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland were subjected to “a systematic and forensic annihilation” by senior EU officials in Brussels this week.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Theresa May’s plan to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland was met with “a detailed and forensic rebuttal” during a meeting between senior EU officials and Olly Robbins, the UK’s leading Brexit negotiator.
“It was made clear none of the UK’s customs options will work,” a source told the Daily Telegraph.
“None of them.”
The reaction to the proposals in Brussels means that the UK is likely to have to go back to the drawing board over the issue of the border in Northern Ireland; only last month, Theresa May said that remaining in the EU Customs Union would “not be compatible with a meaningful independent trade policy”.
Revelations of the “systematic and forensic annihilation” of the UK government’s proposals, meanwhile, come after the House of Lords voted for an amendment to the EU Withdrawal Bill that favours Britain staying the Customs Union.
The report in the Daily Telegraph also details that, at a briefing in Brussels last week, an ambassador raised his hand and asked if anyone could tell him how to open a business in Ireland “because it is going to be great business if there are no border controls”.
Last month, the European Council said that a future trading relationship between the EU and Britain can only be agreed upon if commitments already made by London with regard to the border are “respected in full”.
Theresa May and the UK government are running out of time to come up with a solution over the border issue; Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, has previously called for a final withdrawal agreement to be made by October of this year before Britain’s exit from the EU becomes official in March 2019.
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