Borders: Northern Ireland

(asked on 5th September 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Exiting the European Union :

To ask the Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, what progress he has made with his counterparts in the EU on the prevention of a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland as a result of the UK leaving the EU without remaining in (a) a customs union or (b) the single market.


Answered by
Robin Walker Portrait
Robin Walker
This question was answered on 21st September 2018

We are working at pace with the European Commission to secure a future relationship that meets in full the commitments we made in the December Joint Report on Northern Ireland. This is reflected fully in our White Paper proposals, which would avoid a hard border, preserve the integrity of the UK internal market and Northern Ireland’s place within it, and preserve North-South cooperation in line with the Belfast Agreement.

It is rightly the priority on all sides that those issues should be resolved through our future partnership. But we remain absolutely committed to agreeing a legally operative backstop in the Withdrawal Agreement alongside a framework for that future relationship. We have already agreed legal text with the EU on maintaining the Common Travel Area and associated rights and on protecting North-South cooperation. We have put forward an alternative proposal on the customs elements of the backstop, the Temporary Customs Arrangement, that would only come into force in specific and narrow circumstances. We are now intensifying discussions on both fronts as we look ahead to reaching agreement in the autumn.

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