Avoiding a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland is the government’s top aim in Brexit talks. Brussels wants much the same: the EU Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator Guy Verhofstadt has insisted that there should be no return to a fixed border. This is an aspiration shared by the EU, which makes the issue one of its three priorities before Brexit talks can proceed to the next stage. The Tories’ new friends-in-government are also agreed – and so, too, is the Irish government.
Rarely does Brexit generate such unanimity. So if all sides are agreed, you’d be forgiven for thinking things should be straightforward. Unfortunately not. While it’s clear what isn’t wanted (anything that ‘creates new barriers to doing business within the UK including between Northern Ireland and Great Britain’, according to the government), it’s less obvious what the solution is if Britain is to leave the customs union but wants to keep the status quo on what will be its only land border with the EU.
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