May to visit Northern Ireland to calm fears about hard border after Brexit

Theresa May will visit Northern Ireland tomorrow in a bid to calm fears about a hard border reforming after Brexit.

The prime minister will give her “absolute commitment” to avoiding one, despite failing to get a deal with the EU to prevent such a scenario through parliament.

She will also meet local businesses on the trip that foreshadows her return to Brussels

Mrs May is expected back in the Belgian capital to push EU leaders to reopen the divorce deal she struck in November.

Downing Street has set up a taskforce to examine one plan dubbed the Malthouse Compromise to change the backstop.

The solution is credited to Kit Malthouse, the housing minister, which is aimed to unify the warring wings of the Conservative Party, and came about after peace talks between senior Leavers such as the Brexiteer ringleader Jacob Rees-Mogg and Europhile former minister Nicky Morgan.

What are the details?

There are two parts to it: Plan A, for how the UK will leave the EU with a deal, and plan B for how it will leave with a no-deal.

Downing Street has already set up a working group to examine its proposals, but the EU has ruled out changing the current deal.

Plan A would see the UK formally request two major changes to the withdrawal agreement struck with Brussels in November.

The first is asking to extend the transition period by one year – the temporary bridge between Brexit and the start of a new trade agreement.

Under the current deal it is due to last until the end of 2020.

But the Malthouse Compromise suggests delaying that until 2021, with the UK paying in more money, but allowing more time for a trade deal to be struck before the transition period ends.

The second is asking to change the backstop – the insurance policy that kicks in to prevent a physical border reforming on the island of Ireland if no trade deal is struck by the time the transition period runs out.

It could be changed, the plan says, to become a “basic free trade agreement” – a slimmed-down version of the full future relationship treaty.

Plan B would see the UK accept that a deal will not be struck by 29 March.

It would ask the EU to honour the transition period anyway – keeping the UK subject to law created in Brussels without representation in its institutions – but again for a year longer than planned.

Brexit will still have happened, but a standstill in the relationship will give more times to prepare for the implications of a no-deal divorce.