EU's Barnier offers Britain 'unilateral exit' from customs union after Brexit
BRUSSELS - The European Union can give Britain the unilateral right to leave their customs union after Brexit, chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday in a bid to push their divorce deal over the line in the divided British parliament.
Barnier’s basic idea would keep Northern Ireland in the EU’s trade orbit, something already rejected previously by London in the hard-fought Brexit negotiations as weakening the province’s ties to the rest of the United Kingdom. Sky News Northern Ireland correspondent David Blevins quoted Democratic Unionist Party sources as saying the Barnier proposal showed “no respect to the constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom. It’s a non-starter.”
The eurosceptic wing of May’s Conservative party fears the backstop could trap the UK in the EU’s trading rules forever. While Barnier’s latest proposal would make legally binding commitments of the assurances on the backstop that the EU had already offered in January, it is unlikely to be seen as enough by many of the hardline eurosceptics in the Conservative party.
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