Irish officials dismiss Boris Johnson’s Brexit offer as 'unacceptable'

Irish officials dismiss Boris Johnson’s Brexit offer as 'unacceptable'

Prime minister’s ‘take it or leave it’ proposals described as unworkable and illegal

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Lisa O'Carroll and Daniel Boffey in Brussels

Wed 2 Oct 2019 09.44 BSTLast modified on Wed 2 Oct 2019 10.32 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/02/irish-officials-dismiss-boris-johnson-brexit-offer-as-unacceptable?CMP=fb_gu&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwAR2ZxcvQ9zIslCEntSEIx4ycbpGpVUOKAeYZI_y_R9nkO3I_0DNq2PAmGl4#Echobox=1570007718

Signs point to an old customs and excise area on the Dublin road in Newry, Northern Ireland

 Boris Johnson’s plan would mean customs checks between Northern Ireland and Irish Republic.

Boris Johnson’s final “take it or leave it” Brexit offer to Brussels is in danger of being dead on arrival after it was rounded on by government and opposition parties in Ireland.

The prime minister’s proposals were described as unworkable, unacceptable and illegal under British domestic law, which bans any new infrastructure on the Irish border that did not exist before Brexit day.

“If this is the final offer, then there is not a deal to be had,” said one EU official.

Ireland’s European affairs minister, Helen McEntee, said the plans would not be acceptable to Dublin and raised doubts that Johnson was sincere in wanting a deal.

She said: “What we are talking about again is picking and choosing certain parts of the single market that would be aligned in Northern Ireland. It is talking about a time limit, which again is not acceptable.”

Johnson’s plan to seal a Brexit deal in the next 10 days will be delivered to Brussels on Wednesday with a message that the EU can “take it or leave it” as this is his final offer.

His proposal, which has the full backing of the Democratic Unionist party, has been labelled the “two borders for four years plan”.

It involves the the UK leaving the EU on 31 October with a transition period as originally envisaged until the end of December 2020, but with the vexed issue of the Irish border being solved by a specific proposal for Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland would remain in regulatory alignment with the EU until 2025 but come out of the customs union with the rest of the UK.

It proposes that at the end of 2025 Northern Ireland in conjunction with Ireland would decide on the level of regulatory alignment through a Belfast-Dublin “bilateral lock” in a British-Irish ministerial council.

This would mean customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic from 1 January 2021, something unacceptable to Dublin and DUP’s rivals in Northern Ireland.

The DUP leader, Arlene Foster, said she hoped the EU would take the offer seriously and that she wanted to “focus on a deal”.

But Lisa Chambers, Brexit spokesperson for Fianna Fáil, described the plans as “unacceptable and unworkable”.

She tweeted on Wednesday: “UK is reneging on commitments made to citizens on the island of Ireland that there would be no hard border. This would set our country back years. You would have to question if PM Johnson is genuinely serious about getting a deal, this suggests not.

“We need to see something that is credible and if this is what is being proposed it certainly won’t be acceptable not only to the Irish government but to the EU as a whole.”

McEntee also suggested the proposals, which will be presented as a fair and generous offer, reneged on previous commitments by the UK to ensure no hard border on the island of Ireland.

“It is still talking about the need and requirement for customs checks. So, again, to go back to the commitments it is no infrastructure or associated checks, protecting the Good Friday agreement and the areas of cooperation, protecting the all-Ireland economy and protecting the single market and our place in it. And if that is what is being proposed it certainly doesn’t do any of that,” she said.

The former Northern Ireland secretary Lord Hain said the Brexit plan could break the law and “sabotage” the Good Friday agreement.

The Labour peer said by insisting on extra customs checks and different trading relationships across the Irish border the government “is proposing to break the law”.

He said it would breach Britain’s own Withdrawal Act 2018, which includes a detailed clause specifically banning “border arrangements between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland after exit day that feature physical infrastructure, including border posts, or checks and controls, that did not exist before exit day”.

Hain added: “This will also sabotage the Good Friday peace agreement.”

Britain’s Brexit Act passed by the government includes a ban on the very customs checks proposed by Johnson, says Lord Hain

It is understood that Dominic Cummings, the prime minister’s strategist, has warned top advisers that the UK is prepared to walk away if the EU does not engage seriously with the offer.

“To be clear, we won’t be hanging around waiting for them to negotiate with us,” he told a meeting of senior advisers. “If they reject our offer, that’s it.”

EU sources said the outlines of the proposal did not meet the objectives of the Irish backstop, and threatened both the integrity of the single market and peace in Northern Ireland. “If this is the final offer, then there is not a deal to be had,” said one EU official.

A senior EU diplomat said the two negotiating sides were in fundamental disagreement, and that there was insufficient time to bridge the gap with just three weeks to go before the UK is due to leave the bloc.

He added: “There is a difference in the starting point. We want to avoid the border and checks and controls. And the other side are saying, ‘No we will need some kind of controls, one way or another’, which is difficult for us to accept as it runs into the clear goal of the stability of the island of Ireland.”

Philippe Lamberts, a member of the European parliament’s Brexit steering group, said there was no confidence that Johnson could even guarantee the Commons’ support for his proposals.

He said: “We are in a worse situation than we were facing Theresa May because at least Theresa May had a working majority … The last thing the EU wants to do is to make concessions that won’t fly in Westminster.

“My interpretation of Boris Johnson’s actions since being prime minister is to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union without a deal but with the opportunity to shift the blame to someone else.”