They're talking joint EU and UK status for Northern Ireland as well as the 10 mile border buffer zone:
DAVID Davis is devising a new Brexit plan to break a talks deadlock by giving Northern Ireland joint EU and UK status as well as a border buffer zone.
Under the radical blueprint, the province would operate a double hatted regime of European and British regulations at the same time, so it can trade freely with both.
The Brexit Secretary is also drawing up a 10 mile-wide buffer zone the length of Northern Ireland’s 310 mile border with Ireland.
Dubbed a ‘special economic zone’, it will be for local traders such as dairy farmers – who make up 90 per cent of the cross border traffic - and share the same trade rules as south of the border.
The two plans will together eradicate the need for any border check points, which is a major EU demand.
But both run the risk of infuriating the DUP, whose 10 MPs are propping up Theresa May’s minority government.
Technology based solution abandoned:
Mr Davis ordered it after he was persuaded to abandon a technology based solution to keep the Irish border open.
Senior Ulster cops warned him that any border infrastructure, even if it’s just camera towers or swipe points, would be targeted by IRA bombers, and it would also fall foul of the Good Friday peace agreement.
The tracking of goods, which was another part of the original Max Fac solution to keep goods flowing freely over the border, has also been abandoned because of the Northern Irish’s deep rooted concerns about civil liberties.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/6423932/d ... plans-dup/