Euro court ‘can't be cut out of Northern Ireland deal'

REMOVING European Court of Justice oversight of the Brexit deal for Northern Ireland is an “impossibility”, the EU’s top diplomat in London warned today.

- David Bond

In an interview with the Evening Standard, Joao Vale de Almeida hit back at Health Secretary Sajid Javid who insisted this morning that “there should not be a role for the ECJ in any part of the UK… and that includes Northern Ireland.”

The EU’s ambassador to the UK said: “For us it is not even a red line, it’s an impossibility to have at the same time the benefit of the access to the single market for goods for Northern Ireland … and to the UK market. There is no other territory in the world which can claim that opportunity.

“If you want to have access like Northern Ireland does to the single market for goods you need to play by the book, you play the rules. Any conflict that exists in the single market can go all the way up to the European Court of Justice… so one goes with the other.”