Brexit talks will resume in Brussels on Wednesday morning after “constructive” negotiations that went into the night on Tuesday, a British spokesman said.
“The teams worked into the night and continue to make progress. The teams will meet again this morning,” he said.
French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Wednesday there is a “glimmer of hope” that a Brexit deal can be reached before Britain’s departure due on October 31st.
“There is a glimmer of hope, from what I hear from the negotiators,” Le Maire told Europe 1 radio, adding that protecting the European single market was the “red line” for France in Brexit talks.
However the small Northern Irish party (DUP) supporting Britain’s minority government was not satisfied with the mooted deal and said further work was required on Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal because gaps remain over what they can sign up to.
DUP leader Arlene Foster told BBC Northern Ireland, “we want to get a deal but it has to be a deal that respects the economic and constitutional integrity of the United Kingdom and that means all of the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland included,” Foster told BBC Northern Ireland.
“I think it’s very important that we say that we must remain within the United Kingdom customs union, it’s a principle that has always been there and a principle that will forever be there. We have to be entirely within the United Kingdom.”
“What we have to see is flexibility from the European Union, just as we have shown flexibility around the single market regulations… People have to get real and have to understand that we are part of the United Kingdom, will remain part of the United Kingdom and there has to be respect for that.”
Brexit supporting Conservative lawmaker Owen Paterson was more critical of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s emerging European Union divorce deal and described it as “absurd” and “unacceptable”, The Sun newspaper reported.
Paterson, who served as Britain’s Northern Ireland minister, said the deal was a rehash of former Prime Minister Theresa May’s failed customs partnership ideas.
“When would any other country ever give up part of its territory as part of trade talks? It would be particularly absurd for Northern Ireland,” The Sun quoted Paterson as saying.
“It would shatter the Belfast Agreement’s Principle of Consent and completely undermine Northern Ireland’s status as an integral part of the UK. We must not go down this route,” he said in an interview.
REUTERS