The European Commission’s most senior civil servant has denied allegations that the issue of Northern Ireland’s border was targeted during the Brexit negotiations to punish Britain. Martin Selmayr, secretary-general of the commission, said that claims that senior European Union officials were trying to “harm” the UK were false. Dominic Raab, Britain’s former Brexit secretary, accused Mr Selmayr and others last month of “trying to carve up a major European nation” by insisting on the backstop in the draft treaty. “You would hear swirling around in Brussels — particularly the people around Selmayr, Martin Selmayr in the commission, and some others — that losing Northern Ireland was the price the UK would pay for Brexit,” he told Sky News on December 9. A blog on the…

Source: The Times January 10, 2019 00:01 UTC