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Under the radical blueprint, the province would operate a double hatted regime of European and British regulations at the same time, so it can trade freely with both.
The Brexit Secretary is also drawing up a 10 mile-wide buffer zone the length of Northern Ireland’s 310 mile border with Ireland.
Dubbed a ‘special economic zone’, it will be for local traders such as dairy farmers – who make up 90 per cent of the cross border traffic - and share the same trade rules as south of the border.
The two plans will together eradicate the need for any border check points, which is a major EU demand.
But both run the risk of infuriating the DUP, whose 10 MPs are propping up Theresa May’s minority government.
The Ulster unionists have insisted their only red line on Brexit is not be treated in any different way to the rest of the UK.
The new plan is a major revision of the ‘Maximum Facilitation’ option, one of two solutions for a post-Brexit customs agreement with the EU. [...]