Europe

Home page

Europe

PM hopeful Javid proposes UK pay for both sides of Irish border system

10 June 2019 13:25 (UTC +04:00)

The Interior Minister's plan would establish a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland and represents a rejection of the 'backstop solution', which calls for a border-free Ireland but would necessitate customs checks inside the United Kingdom between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, APA reports citing Sputnik.

British Interior Minister and PM hopeful Sajid Javid said that the UK should offer to pay for the whole cost of the new border system on the island of Ireland.

"I would offer to pay the entire cost of this new border system, not just obviously for ourselves, but for the Irish," he said.

The Irish border has been a major stumbling block in the way of the divorce deal between the UK and the EU. Even though outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May managed to negotiate a withdrawal deal with Brussels earlier this year after months of tense negotiations, the agreement was ultimately rejected by the UK Parliament, including many members of her own party and their coalition partners, the Democratic Unionist Party of Northern Ireland.

The UK was initially supposed to leave the EU on 29 March. The sides agreed on a withdrawal deal, but British MPs refused to pass it, with the arrangement to avoid a hard border on the island of Ireland being one of the main points of concern for parliament. Brussels then subsequently moved the deadline for London to 31 October.