Ireland will block Brexit talks unless border issue agreed

British Prime Minister Theresa May has said Britain will leave the single market and the customs unions after Brexit. Dublin wants a written guarantee that there will be no hard border between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland.

By: Reuters | London | Published: November 26, 2017 8:38 pm

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“We will not support any arrangements that create barriers to trade between Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom or any suggestion that Northern Ireland, unlike the rest of the UK, will have to mirror European regulations,” the Democratic Unionist leader Arlene Foster said on Saturday.

Ireland’s EU commissioner said Dublin would “continue to play tough” over its threat to veto talks about trade after Brexit unless Britain provided guarantees over the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. Phil Hogan, the EU’s agricultural commissioner, said that Britain, or Northern Ireland at least, should remain in the single market and the customs union to avoid a hard border dividing the island.