Exclusive: EU rejects Theresa May's Brexit Irish border solution as doubts grow over whether UK can leave customs union
The EU has comprehensively rejected British proposals for avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland in a move which will cast serious doubt on the UK’s ability to leave the customs union, The Telegraph has learned.
Senior EU diplomatic sources said that Mrs May’s plan for avoiding a hard border in Northern Ireland was subjected to a “systematic and forensic annihilation” this week at a meeting between senior EU officials and Olly Robbins, the UK’s lead Brexit negotiator.
“It was a detailed and forensic rebuttal,” added the source who was directly briefed on the meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. “It was made clear that none of the UK’s customs options will work. None of them.”
I'd love to see the EU's reaction if we put that forward as our solution to the boarder problem.
That said I doubt it would work. At best you'd just be sticking RFID in people's arms which would be impossible to read if they were in a car and the reader weren't.
In the long term I think that it might be better to have someone who is actively hostile to the EU as prime minster, that way the excuses will be less effective when everything goes to gooseberry fool.
The only solutions that could practically work on paper are a united Ireland or for the U.K. to not leave the EU. Everything else just doesn’t make any sense.
I know Rees-Mog is talking nonsense but on a serious note he's stoking anti irish sentiment amongst the plebs in the UK. No wonder James O'Brien gets callers in saying chip Irish people.
The only solutions that could practically work on paper are a united Ireland or for the U.K. to not leave the EU. Everything else just doesn’t make any sense.
I would go as far as saying that a United Ireland wouldn't make sense at this point. The Loyalist side will not take kindly to it if we voted for it.
Give it a few more decades, I'd be happy enough for a vote.
The only solutions that could practically work on paper are a united Ireland or for the U.K. to not leave the EU. Everything else just doesn’t make any sense.
Surely Sinn Fein's recent successes and demographic trends should have the British government planning for this utter inevitability, yet it's not been mentioned once.
The only solutions that could practically work on paper are a united Ireland or for the U.K. to not leave the EU. Everything else just doesn’t make any sense.
Surely Sinn Fein's recent successes and demographic trends should have the British government planning for this utter inevitability, yet it's not been mentioned once.
We can't afford Northern Ireland at the moment tbh. Plus their growth is way behind ours so it would just stifle any economic momentum we've built up.
It may happen but its years away and it would have to happen when both economies are on an even keel.