SDLP Leader Colum Eastwood has welcomed clarification from an internal EU negotiation paper which states that the North of Ireland must remain in the single market and customs union in order to avoid a hard border being imposed across the island of Ireland.
Mr Eastwood said the negotiation paper effectively mapped out the need for ‘special status’ in Northern Ireland.
The SDLP leader said: ‘This is a welcome and timely clarification that the trading relationship across the island of Ireland must remain unchanged in order to avoid any hardening of the border in Ireland.
“That can only happen if Northern Ireland retains full access to the single market and stays in the customs union.
‘Never has a statement of the obvious been so welcome.
‘The DUP and the British Government should be constantly reminded that the people of Northern Ireland voted to remain in the European Union – staying in the customs union and the single market gives substantial effect to that vote.
‘It would be the height of madness to get sucked into the belief that because of the temporary parliamentary arithmetic at Westminster, the DUP somehow hold a veto on the future of the border on this island. They do not, cannot and must not.
‘The Irish Government must now hold strong to the position that sufficient progress will not have been made in the first phase of the Brexit negotiations unless and until there is sufficient clarity that there can be no hardening of the Irish border.
‘The SDLP is clear that sufficient progress will not have been achieved unless the Irish Government, the British Government and the European Union are all locked into the commitment that there will be no hardening of the border in Ireland – no matter the outcome of the second phase of negotiations.
‘This is the sufficient clarity on the border question which is required by people across this island.
‘I am acutely aware of the complexity of resolving the issues around external customs and the future trading relationship between the EU and the UK however the political imposition of a new economic border across the island of Ireland must be resolved and ruled out upfront in these negotiations.
‘As the SDLP has consistently said, many of the ‘flexible and imaginative solutions’ so often referred to already exist within the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement. In particular, post-Brexit, the North-South structures could come into their own – ensuring that we are not cut off from the broader island economy and the European Union,” added the Foyle MLA.
