Owen Paterson takes Brexit fight to Brussels

The North Shropshire MP cemented his position as one of the Tory Party’s leading voices for a hard Brexit.

He joined fellow members of the eurosceptic European Research Group for talks that he described as “constructive”.

It comes as Mr Paterson and fellow Brexiteers within the Conservative Party crank up the pressure on Theresa May.

The Prime Minister insists the Brexit deal is “95 per cent complete”. But the issue of cross-border trade remains a barrier and Mr Paterson said he and his colleagues put forward a solution to Mr Barnier.

The MP, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, was joined by fellow Brexit supporter Iain Duncan Smith and Lord Trimble, the former leader of the Ulster Unionist Party and a veteran of the negotiation team that struck the Good Friday Agreement.

They are campaigning for a solution to the problem of the Northern Ireland border that would still enable the UK to leave the EU single market and customs union.

Mr Paterson said: “Using existing techniques, existing processes within existing EU law, we can ensure the integrity of the single market and customs union is not infringed and that near frictionless trade can carry on at all our borders, including Northern Ireland, without new infrastructure on any borders.

“We had a long and constructive meeting with Mr Barnier and his staff and we are now going to go back and report to our colleagues and our own Government.”

The eurosceptics argued against the PM’s plans for a facilitated customs arrangement where the UK would collect tariffs on behalf of the EU on goods destined for the Continent, but charge a lower tariff if they were intended for the UK.

Mr Barnier has already suggested this could result in a smugglers’ paradise, with goods misdeclared and then sent on to Europe in order to avoid the EU’s tariffs, which can be as high as 36 per cent on some agricultural products.

The delegation rejected accusations of going behind the back of the Mrs May in a bid to scupper her own Brexit plans.

But Mr Duncan Smith said: “The Government negotiates, we are just here to present a paper, which we did, and have a constructive discussion, which we had, and we will now go back and talk to the Government about it.”

Eurosceptics believe the Prime Minister is ready to accept the EU’s so-called backstop offer, which would effectively keep Northern Ireland in the customs union and parts of the single market in order to prevent a hardening of the Irish border.