THE EU Commission has made clear that a no-deal Brexit will lead to a hard border in Ireland.
With just 65 days until the UK leaves the EU, and with the Tory government unable to get its deal through Parliament, political chiefs in Brussels are becoming increasingly frustrated.
A spokesman said a hard border, which would mean checks and controls between the north and republic, was a “pretty obvious” outcome of the UK and the EU failing to agree on how to withdraw from the EU.
One of the key principles of the Good Friday Agreement, which helped establish a peace in Northern Ireland after decades of violence, was the minimising of borders, doing away with security checks.
The commission made clear that London would risk this if they failed to back a deal.
The spokesman said: “Our commitment to the Good Friday Agreement and everything that we have been doing for years with our tools, instruments and programmes will have to take inevitably into account this fact.
“So, of course, we are for peace, of course we stand behind the Good Friday Agreement, but that’s what a no-deal scenario would entail.”
The Prime Minister has, until recently, repeatedly promised that the Government would do “everything in our power” to avoid a hard border.
But her Brexit deal was defeated comprehensively in Parliament last week and there are fears in Europe that she is going to choose her party over the country to abandon her commitment to the backstop – the safety net that would effectively keep the UK in the customs union and single market in the event of a no-deal Brexit.
Last week, May pre-empted the commission’s comments, telling the Commons: “I have been clear that the United Kingdom Government would not erect a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland but, as I have indicated and as has been clear from a number of questions today, the European Commission is also clear that, in a no-deal scenario, checks at the border would be expected.”
The DUP’s Sammy Wilson accused Brussels of bluffing. “More belligerent bluffing from the EU in a desperate attempt to up the ante. It didn’t work before and it won’t work now,” he said.
“Ignore the bluffing, there won’t be a hard border!” he added.
A spokesman for the Irish government said they would “not accept a hard border on this island and therefore we are not planning for one.”
They said if Theresa May failed to get the deal agreed with Europe through the Parliament, she would still need to agree a backstop-style arrangement with Ireland.
The spokesman added: “Regardless of Brexit, the British Government will always have responsibilities as co-guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement to ensure that, even in a no deal, there will not be a return to a border.”
Last week, Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, was caught on tape saying he and his fellow ministers should keep quiet about the likelihood of a hard border.
In a private conversation, he was caught saying: “Once you start talking about checks anywhere near the border, people will start delving into that and all of a sudden we’ll be the government that reintroduced a physical border on the island of Ireland.”
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