David Davis: Northern Ireland plan would apply to whole UK
Brexit secretary says ‘regulatory alignment’ would not mean having same rules as EU, but DUP says it refused to agree to deal
David Davis has told MPs that the government is seeking
UK-wide “regulatory alignment” after Brexit, but minutes later the DUP said it had rejected the idea as proposed in Irish border negotiating text on Monday.
The Brexit secretary told MPs in answer to an urgent question that any deal achieved for Northern Ireland would apply to the entire country in response to the insistent demands of a string of Scottish, Welsh and English MPs.
He also insisted that did not mean retaining exactly the same rules as the EU or remaining in the single market.
Davis told MPs: “
The presumption of the discussion was that everything we talked about applied to the whole United Kingdom. Alignment isn’t harmonisation. It isn’t having exactly the same rules. It is sometimes having mutually recognised rules, mutually recognised inspection – that is what we are aiming at.”
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/dec/05/david-davis-northern-ireland-plan-apply-whole-uk-brexit-dup