Irish border dispute could stall Brexit talks, says leader of MEPs

MEPs today threatened to torpedo a Brexit deal in a growing row over the Irish border.

The European Parliament waded into the dispute as a senior Irish politician warned that any watch towers put up on a new “hard border” with Northern Ireland risked coming under attack within days.

Speaking to the Evening Standard, Guy Verhofstadt, the European Parliament’s chief Brexit negotiator, demanded that Theresa May come up with fresh thinking to defuse the border stand-off, or risk stalling talks.

“For us, dividing up Ireland is not an option at all,” he said. “The European Parliament fully backs the Irish government concerns about the negative impact of Brexit and the need to ensure the continuity and stability of the Northern Ireland peace process.”

He insisted that a UK offer include a commitment to stick to European Union rules and regulations within Northern Ireland. MEPs will have a veto on the final Brexit deal, which the EU wants to wrap up by October 2018.

Mrs May has said that the Government does not want a hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has suggested that technology could be used to monitor trade by multinational companies while a “blind eye” is turned to farmers and small firms taking goods across the border.

International Trade Secretary Liam Fox has said agreement cannot be reached until it is known what the “end state” of the UK-EU trade relationship will be after Brexit in 2019, but Dublin has called for written guarantees.

Irish senator Neale Richmond, a European affairs spokesman for the Fine Gael party that leads the government, warned of violence if there is a return to a hard border.

He said: “You put up one watchtower, or put out one customs patrol, and they will be a target, and I would argue they would be attacked within a week of them going up.”

Brexit Secretary David Davis is seeking “specific solutions” to Northern Ireland’s “unique circumstances”.

EU agriculture chief Phil Hogan has argued that remaining in the single market and customs union is the only solution to preventing a new border in Ireland. Goods inspections could be carried out at ports and airports between the UK and Ireland, but the Democratic Unionist Party, whose 10 Westminster MPs are propping up the Tory government, has ruled this out.

Meanwhile the Government is understood to be due to publish its analysis of Brexit within 24 hours. The studies — known as the Brexit papers — will shine a light on how 58 key industries could be affected when Britain leaves the EU. The papers were meant to be confidential, but Labour forced their release through a Commons motion.

The Government was today warned by its own adviser that the free movement of “highly skilled people” after Brexit is vital to the success of London as a centre of pharmaceutical research.

Sir John Bell, Regius professor of medicine at Oxford, told the BBC’s Today programme: “We need the smartest people from across the world to make this work — we also need to move products back and forth across national boundaries.”