Raab floats extended transition as ‘alternative’ to Ireland backstop

UK Brexit secretary rejects ‘indefinite limbo’ inside customs union.

Click Here: liverpool mens jersey

Dominic Raab, the U.K.’s Brexit secretary, suggested the EU and Britain would need to choose between extending the Brexit transition period and a time-limited backstop to avoid a hard border in Ireland.

A mooted proposal to extend the transition period, during which relations between the EU and U.K. would remain much as they are now, would only be an “alternative” to a backstop, Raab writes in an op-ed for the Sunday Telegraph.

In a backstop proposal discussed by EU and British negotiators, the U.K. would promise to remain in the EU customs union unless another solution is found for the future relationship that similarly avoids a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Raab argues that such an unlimited backstop would risk “an indefinite limbo inside the EU’s customs union” and instead advocates for a “time-limit or a mechanism that enables the UK to leave, in case the EU doesn’t live up to its promise to get the future relationship in place swiftly.”

“We can fix these issues, and the Prime Minister has rightly refused to rule out considering different approaches — including extending the implementation period for a limited period of a few months, as an alternative to the backstop,” Raab writes.