Theresa May's plan to keep Britain aligned with the EU customs union after the end of a post-Brexit transition period has run into resistance from Conservative backbenchers, with former party leader Iain Duncan Smith warning that it should not last more than a month or two.
The cabinet agreed this week that the whole of the United Kingdom could remain linked to the customs union beyond the end of 2020 if trade negotiations failed to find a solution that would keep the Irish Border open.
Mr Duncan Smith said Brexiteers could accept such a move but only if it was very strictly limited in duration and he warned against agreeing to an extension at this stage in the negotiations.
“If they do require to have some kind of backstop, most people will accept that on the basis that it is there for practical reasons but that it is not in any way about the politics, it is wholly about the practicalities,” he told the BBC.
‘Barking mad’
“Pre-announcing an extension would be barking mad – you would send a signal to the EU that we don’t know what we want.”
Labour's shadow Northern Ireland secretary Tony Lloyd said the prime minister's proposal, which she has yet to outline in detail, was no more than a temporary measure which was an inadequate response to the issue of the Border.
“If I was an investor looking to invest in my own constituency here in Rochdale, or for that matter anywhere across Northern Ireland, I’d want a bit more certainty about how long this is going to last,” he said.
“We’ve got to have some real fleshing-out, because no hard border is not just for 2019, 2020, it’s got to be into the long future.”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said this week that a plan for customs would not be enough to resolve the Border issue, which would require Britain to retain close ties to the single market too. EU negotiators are sceptical about a customs-only solution, pointing out that border checks would still be needed for regulatory purposes.
Proposed backstop
Brussels has also made clear that its proposed backstop for Northern Ireland, which would see the North effectively remain in parts of the single market, will not be available to the whole of the UK.
Brexiteers on the Conservative backbenches are adamant that Britain must not maintain regulatory alignment for goods with the EU after Brexit and that the country must be free to negotiate new, independent trade deals as soon as possible.
Following 15 defeats in the House of Lords on the EU Withdrawal Bill, Ms May has nominated nine new Conservative life peers, including a number of former MPs. Since most of the amendments opposed by the government were passed with majorities numbered in the dozens, the appointments will not make a decisive difference to the arithmetic in the upper house.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn nominated three life peers and DUP leader in Westminster Nigel Dodds nominated former mid-Ulster MP William McCrea.
