Theresa May's new customs plan could keep UK aligned with EU past 2020

Prime Minister Theresa May has proposed a new Brexit customs plan aimed to break the deadlock the UK government is facing over the future relationship with the EU post-2020 faced some problems on Thursday.

After denying reports on Thursday that the UK could stay aligned with the block after 2020, she persuaded Brexiters in the Cabinet to agree to a plan to continue applying EU tariffs beyond the end of 2020, as a backstop in the event that no agreement is reached to prevent a hard Irish border.

With Britain's divorce from the European Union in March of 2019 looming, a transition deal running until December 2020 has already been secured for the country to get its affairs in order before exiting the customs union. Although the UK still needs a permanent deal for the period post-2020 to exit the block.

The PM’s new proposal ran into trouble overnight as Irish counterpart Leo Varadkar said it might not be enough to avoid the hard border but was encouraged by May's talk of a “deep customs arrangement”.

“But certainly I think any move on customs which brings the UK closer to the EU is to be welcomed, but I very much emphasised that resolving the issue of a hard border requires more than customs,” said Varadkar.

According to the Telegraph, Brussels is likely to reject Theresa May’s plan to keep Britain aligned with the EU customs union since it believes that the backstop to prevent the Irish border should only include Northern Ireland and not the rest of the UK.