Exclusive: Leaked paper reveals backup proposal to avoid hard land border with Ireland
A backup plan to impose border checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK at ports and airports to avoid a hard border with the Republic of Ireland after Brexit has been drafted by senior civil servants.
Despite the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) angrily rejecting any suggestion of a border “in the Irish Sea”, a leaked paper reveals that officials have been working on a blueprint “to be deployed as necessary in the negotiation process”.
The proposal is described as “infinitely preferable” to a hard land border on the island of Ireland and the risk of a return to violence. The European Union has already rejected Theresa May’s two main proposals: maximum facilitation, which would involve some border infrastructure, and a customs partnership, in which the UK would mirror Brussels’ customs rules and collect tariffs for the EU.
The prime minister has insisted the UK will leave the customs union and the single market. She has also adamantly ruled out the return of a hard border on the island of Ireland. The EU, meanwhile, has warned it will not tolerate a solution that undermines the single market and customs union.
While acknowledging these could be seen to be “inherently incompatible positions”, the paper – drawn up by senior officials working on Brexit in the Northern Ireland executive – argues that “ports and airports provide helpful opportunities for surveillance that assist with risk management even when they do not have any of the visible paraphernalia of a border”.
Quick guide
What are the UK government's EU customs proposals?
The DUP leader, Arlene Foster, has claimed that opting for checks on trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK would be constitutionally unacceptable and economically catastrophic.
The document deals with this claim by stating: “Concern that a model without a land border would imply ‘a border in the Irish Sea’ could be addressed by providing a ‘green channel’ for goods moving between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, so that there need be no check or constraint on movement.”
It adds: “The very simple and important practical point is that loading on to a ship or aeroplane always involves both a pause in movement and some checks of ‘entitlement to board’ – obviously neither if these apply at the land border. Pragmatic extension of a present reality, with the lightest possible touch required to manage risk, seems infinitely preferable to ‘a return to the border of the past’.
“As is the case at the English Channel ports, there would still be significant issues if the ‘time to board’ is materially higher than at present, but it is clear that solutions are required in relation to that issue for the UK as a whole.”
A government spokesperson declined to comment on the paper on the grounds that it had not been published, and stipulated that as the document derived from the Northern Ireland executive it was “not a UK government policy document”.
She said: “Our policy is clear – we are committed to ensuring there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and to ensuring the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the UK’s internal market. We have set out our preferred customs models to enable trade to remain as frictionless as possible.”
She said: “Our policy is clear – we are committed to ensuring there is no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland and to ensuring the same unfettered access for Northern Ireland’s businesses to the whole of the UK’s internal market. We have set out our preferred customs models to enable trade to remain as frictionless as possible.”
The UK is, however, now under growing pressure to come up with a new solution for the border by the next European council summit in June, or risk a breakdown in talks on trade.
The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, visited Ireland on Monday. He is understood to have told MEPs on his return to Brussels that the DUP – whose 10 MPs give May a parliamentary majority – had “used, or perhaps abused, its position in the House of Commons” to block a way forward.
Barnier has previously suggested that checks at ports and airports could be a solution.
The leaked document suggests there would need to be a requirement on traders between Northern Ireland and Great Britain to provide information ahead of time for it to work, and “a system of random and intelligence-/data-based checks” on goods going through the “green channel”.
Goods moving from the Republic of Ireland to Great Britain via Northern Ireland would be subject to checks in a “red channel” at the port or airport where they leave the island of Ireland.
Imports from Great Britain and the rest of the world to Northern Ireland that are not permitted to enter the single market would also be subjected to “red channel checks”, with “draconian penalties for noncompliance”.
“The degree to which these protections are needed would depend on the degree of regulatory divergence that would apply sector by sector, and clearly that may evolve over time from the status quo of regulatory uniformity,” the 19-page document says.
Officials concede in the document that a major test of their approach would be whether it was “perceived politically as in effect creating a hard border with the UK (or between Ireland and the rest of the EU)”.
It is also recognised that keeping the border open on the island of Ireland will allow goods not compliant with EU or UK trade policy to move freely around the two jurisdictions. “But the same risk is tolerated to some degree in other contexts (eg between Switzerland and its EU neighbours),” the paper argues. “The commitment to support the all-island economy suggests that some degree of risk can be accepted.”
The paper is believed to have been drafted by Andrew McCormick, Northern Ireland’s director general of international relations for Brexit, with oversight from the head of the Northern Ireland civil service, David Sterling. It was shared with the DUP earlier this year, and the party reiterated its opposition.
The Sinn Féin MEP Martina Anderson said: “This proposal offered a workable solution which would see the north remaining in the customs union and mechanisms put in place to protect trading arrangements between Ireland, north and south, and Britain.”
Brexit negotiators sidestepped any discussions about the Irish border in Brussels this week, instead publishing on Friday an agreed list of subjects to be discussed in the coming trade talks, ranging from financial services to fisheries.
The Brexit secretary, David Davis, said: “Both the United Kingdom and European Union remain committed to reaching agreement on the terms of our future partnership by October, in addition to finalising the withdrawal agreement including the protocol on Northern Ireland.”
