UK Staying In EU Customs Union Only Way Of Ensuring Frictionless Irish Border - Blair

The only possible solution to the post-Brexit difficulties with the Irish border is to retain UK-wide membership in the EU Customs Union as well as the bloc's Single Market, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, arguing that a full exit from the single market would be "incompatible" with the set goals

LONDON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 29th November, 2018) The only possible solution to the post-Brexit difficulties with the Irish border is to retain UK-wide membership in the EU Customs Union as well as the bloc's Single Market, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said, arguing that a full exit from the single market would be "incompatible" with the set goals.

Blair recalled that the UK government had made three main commitments during the Brexit negotiations: no hard border between Ireland and Northern Ireland, maintaining the same relationship with the European Union and leaving the EU Customs Union and Single Market.

"Anybody who studies the technical detail knows that these three things are mutually incompatible ... The only way to have a frictionless border in Ireland is to be part of the Customs Union and part of the Single Market, at least for goods and agricultural products," he said at the Financial Time's "Brexit and Beyond" conference in London, asked a relevant question by a Sputnik correspondent.

Blair argued that UK Prime Minister Theresa May's efforts to compromise with both the European Union and UK Eurosceptics had culminated in an attempt to square the circle with regard to the Irish border issue.

"What is the basic Brexit problem? The basic problem is that a whole series of political positions were taken before people studied the technical consequences of those political positions," the former prime minister added.

Blair also went on to criticize the idea that the country's membership in the bloc deprived it of control over its own laws, arguing that during his 10-year tenure as prime minister, he had never encountered any difficulties with making his own policy in either domestic or international affairs.

"The thing I find really bizarre about the whole Brexit thing is how the country has been persuaded that we don't make our own laws ... I literally do not remember a single moment in the whole of my ten years when there was something I wanted to do on health, on education, on taxes, on spending, on welfare, on war and peace ... where Europe stopped me doing what we wanted to do," Blair stressed.

The politician served as the head of the UK government between 1997 and 2007.

The long-sought draft agreement on the Brexit conditions was finally revealed on November 14. According to the draft, London and Brussels agreed to establish an EU-UK single customs territory, with Northern Ireland set to be tied to some EU single market rules that are essential for avoiding a hard border.

On November 25, the leaders of the remaining 27 EU member states endorsed the withdrawal agreement and the political declaration on future relations with the United Kingdom. The proposed deal has not been formally signed yet and the UK Parliament is expected to vote on the draft on December 11. Meanwhile, the agreement has faced harsh criticism both on the part of the country's opposition and May's own ruling party.

UK citizens voted to leave the European Union in a referendum in June 2016. The exit is expected happen by late March 2019.