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Deal will guarantee 'no hard border' as 'sufficient progress' made in first phase Brexit talks

Deal will guarantee 'no hard border' as 'sufficient progress' made in first phase Brexit talks

The European Commission has announced that "sufficient progress" has been made in the first phase of Brexit talks.

The announcement came after Theresa May and David Davis made an early-hours journey to Brussels to meet with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and the European Union's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier.

It followed talks which continued into the early hours between the Prime Minister and Democratic Unionist Party, Arlene Foster, whose party scuppered a deal at the eleventh hour on Monday.

Mrs Foster said that "substantial changes" to the text rejected on Monday would mean there was "no red line down the Irish Sea" in the form of a customs barrier between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK.

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Mr Juncker said that the decision on whether to move forward to talks on trade and the transition to a post-Brexit relationship was in the hands of the leaders of the 27 other EU nations, meeting in Brussels at a European Council summit on Thursday, but said he was "confident" they would do so.

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The Commission president said: "I will always be sad about this development, but now we must start looking to the future, a future in which the UK will remain a close friend and ally."

Mrs May said that intensive talks over the past few days had delivered "a hard-won agreement in all our interests".

The Prime Minister said that the agreement would guarantee the rights of three million EU citizens in the UK "enshrined in UK law and enforced by British courts".

She said that it included a financial settlement which was "fair to the British taxpayer" and a guarantee that there will be "no hard border" between Northern Ireland and the Republic, preserving the "constitutional and economic integrity of the United Kingdom".

She said that the agreement between the UK and the Commission, being published in a joint report, would offer "welcome certainty" to businesses.

Under the terms of the negotiations being carried out under Article 50 of the EU treaties, the European Council must agree that sufficient progress has been made on the divorce issues of citizens' rights, the Irish border and the UK's financial settlement before talks can move on to the issues of trade and transition.

The publication of the joint report makes it all but certain that EU27 leaders will approve this step on Thursday, marking a significant step forward in the process leading towards UK withdrawal in March 2019.

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