Ireland warns UK on post-Brexit border issue

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Reuters

The British government has been warned to respect its commitment to avoid a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney has said that a time-limited agreement – or unilaterally canceled by the UK – would never benefit from EU support.

The border issue is the main obstacle to progress between the two parties.

While time is running out, Theresa May, who informs her government on Tuesday, has to convince the European Union and its deputies.

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The UK must leave the EU in March and although 95% of the agreement is considered complete, the most difficult problem is how to meet the commitment made by both sides of the EU. guarantee no new rigid borders in Ireland.

This is a problem because after the Brexit, it will become the UK's land border with the rest of the EU, which has a single market and a customs union, so the products do not have a single market. do not need to be checked when they pass from one Member State to the other.

There have been warnings that a hard border will undermine the peace process in Northern Ireland.

But unless negotiators can make decisive progress on how not to guarantee new visible controls, a special summit to finalize the withdrawal of the UK will not take place.

Tory Brexiteers fears that the UK will end up being locked in a customs union with the EU without a definite end point.

In The Sun, former Foreign Minister Boris Johnson said it would act as an "absolute agreement" on an agreement and warned of a "surrender" in Brussels ", the UK remaining bound by EU rules in the years to come.

But Ms. May insisted that any arrangement would be "strictly limited in time".

This, however, is not the EU's point of view.

On Twitter, Mr Coveney said that a "backstop limited in time" would "not respect previous commitments from the UK".

"It must still be repeated, it seems," said Sabine Weyand, EU Deputy Chief Negotiator.

However, Ms. May dismissed the European Union's suggestion regarding a specific arrangement in Northern Ireland, saying that it would compromise the integrity of the United Kingdom by creating a new border on the United Kingdom. along the sea of ​​Ireland.

BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg said Coveney's comments mattered because the Conservatives felt "deeply uncomfortable" about signing a "best before" date-less contract.

The two sides are not going to "suddenly find a holy grail," she said – then "this week must be decisive".

Lawyers ask for a referendum

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At the same time, 1,400 lawyers signed a letter calling for a new referendum on the EU.

Among the signatories of the letter are Baroness Kennedy, au pair, former judges of the Court of Appeal, Konrad Schiemann, and David Edward, former judge of the European Court of Justice.

They say that questions about the validity of the 2016 vote mean that this should not be the last word of the public, any more than the 1975 referendum on the accession of what was then the European Economic Community.

In the previous referendum, voters had been confronted with a clear choice of alternatives once the negotiations ended, the lawyers said.

On the other hand, in the 2016 vote, "the nature of the negotiation process and its outcome were unknown," says the letter.

"Voters had to choose between a known reality and an unknown alternative.In the campaign, unverifiable claims replaced facts and reality."

The UK government has said that asking people to vote again would be a betrayal of public trust after the 2016 referendum result.

A spokeswoman for the department "Going out of the European Union" said that the government was confident in a "mutually beneficial" agreement with the EU.

"The people of the United Kingdom have already had their say in one of the greatest democratic exercises ever in this country and the Prime Minister has made it clear that there will be no second referendum, "she said.