Fury at plan for border checks between Northern Ireland and mainland UK after Brexit
Peter Hain has suggested that Northern Ireland should enter a customs union with the Republic
THE UK will be torn apart if a plans for customs controls after Brexit become reality, it was claimed today.
Senior ex-minister Peter Hain is calling for Northern Ireland to enter a new customs union with the Republic to prevent a hard Irish border when Britain leaves the EU.
But unionists fear that the proposals would result in “the partition of the UK” and play into the hands of Sinn Fein - which is calling for a new referendum on Northern Ireland’s future.
Lord Hain, the former Northern Ireland Secretary, tells the House of Lords today that the Government must prevent a hard border in Ireland at all costs.
He was expected to say: “In my view the only way of resolving the border conundrum is for Northern Ireland to be within the same customs union and single market as the Republic - either Northern Ireland alone or preferably with the whole of the UK."
The peer has dismissed the Government’s claim that the vast majority of businesses can continue to trade across the border between the UK and Northern Ireland.
Reg Empey, chairman of the Ulster Unionist party, warned against any plan to separate mainland Britain from Northern Ireland.
He said: "This idea amounts to the partition of the UK and is Sinn Fein's policy.
"Unionists will never agree to a border up the middle of the Irish Sea, which would be the outworking of Lord Hain's proposal.
“Why on earth would we agree to cut ourselves off from the mainland to protect 15 per cent of our business and put 85 per cent of it at risk? It is simply nonsensical.”
If Northern Ireland and the Republic were in a customs union which did not include England, Wales and Northern Ireland, there may have to be border checks between the two parts of the UK.
Today Sinn Fein’s Gerry Adams called for a referendum on a united Ireland to come within the next five years.
MOST READ IN POLITICS
DUP leader Arlene Foster slammed the suggestion, saying: "Northern Ireland needs stability. That means we need a functioning government to make vital decisions. We do not need a divisive and destabilising border poll."
The province’s government is still suspended after the collapse of the previous power-sharing arrangement.
Talks on the future of the Irish border have taken centre stage in the first rounds of Brexit talks between Britain and the EU.