Brexit talks have hit a significant impasse over the issue of the Northern Ireland border, British government sources have claimed, increasing the likelihood of a deal being achieved only at the last minute, if at all.
After the Brexit secretary, Dominic Raab, flew to Brussels on Sunday for talks, it has emerged that a deal is being held up by renewed differences on the so-called backstop arrangement insisted on by the EU to prevent a hard Irish border.
However, the suggestion that the EU had surprised Downing Street by insisting that the Northern Ireland-specific backstop would need to stay in the withdrawal agreement has been met with scorn by diplomats in Brussels.
According to UK government sources, there is agreement that the EU’s backstop idea, which would keep Northern Ireland in the customs union and single market ahead of a workable trade deal, should apply to the whole of the UK, as insisted on by Theresa May.
However, the sources say, Brussels is arguing this solution has an extra insurance policy of an additional Northern Ireland-only “backstop to the backstop”, which if imposed would place a customs border in the Irish Sea, something May has rejected.
Any sign of the prime minister giving way on the issue would prompt fury from her Democratic Unionist party allies. Sammy Wilson, the DUP’s Brexit spokesman, said it was almost inevitable the UK would end up with no deal.
He told the Belfast Newsletter: “Given the way in which the EU has behaved and the corner they’ve put Theresa May into, there’s no deal which I can see at present which will command a majority in the House of Commons. So it is probably inevitable that we will end up with a no-deal scenario.”
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