UK PM: Chequers plan is the way forward

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

British Prime Minister Theresa May said Monday she is confident of reaching a deal with the European Union based on her Brexit plan – known as Chequers – which she outlined in July.

Speaking on BBC’s Panorama program, May said she would bring the plan to parliament for MPs to vote on probably in November but warned that the alternative to the Chequers plan is a no-deal scenario.

Under the Chequers plan, named after the prime minister's country retreat, where it was hashed out in July, the UK would accept a “common rulebook” for trade in all food and goods with the EU after Brexit and the UK’s continued harmonization with EU rules would be guaranteed with a treaty to be signed. A hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland will be avoided, according to the proposal.

May rejected any other proposals for Ireland’s border, including one suggesting moving border checks away from the current ‘invisible’ border, where there are no security checkpoints.

“What many of these other plans are based on is moving the border. You don’t solve the issue of no hard border by having a hard border 20km inside Northern Ireland, or 20km inside Ireland. It is still a hard border,” May said.

“What we’ve done is listen to the people of Northern Ireland…They don’t want a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland.

“The only proposal that has been put forward that delivers on them not having that hard border and ensures that we don’t carve up the United Kingdom is the Chequers plan,” she added.

May also responded to former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who accused her of wrapping a “suicide vest” around Britain with the Chequers plan and handing the “detonator” to Brussels.

May said she would not have chosen this kind of language and said it was inappropriate.

Brexit negotiations between the UK and EU will continue this week as May will travel to the Austrian city of Salzburg for an informal EU leaders’ summit.

With only six months left before the country’s exit from the EU, a deal -- which is still to be agreed on by both sides -- will need approval from the British parliament as well as the parliaments of the 27 EU member states before March 29, 2019.

The Northern Ireland – Ireland border, citizens’ rights and future trade arrangements have been the stickiest points in the negotiations.