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Northern Ireland's David Trimble to take UK government to court over backstop

Trimble, who won the Nobel Prize for his role in the Good Friday Agreement, said he would mount a legal fight against the Irish backstop. The Chief EU negotiator said the measure remained the "only solution" for Brexit.

Northern Ireland's former First Minister, David Trimble, announced on Monday that he would take the UK government to court over the Irish border backstop clause in the Brexit deal hammered out by British Prime Minister Theresa May and the EU.

"The Nobel Peace Prize winner and architect of the Good Friday Agreement plans to initiate judicial review proceedings to ensure that the Protocol is removed from the Withdrawal Agreement," a spokesman for Trimble said.

He says the backstop violates the 1998Good Friday Agreement and called for an interim free trade agreement with specific "customs and trade facilitation, to deliver an "invisible and compliant border in Ireland..." as set out in a paper last month by Conservative pro-Brexit lawmakers.

Many in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are worried that an indefinite backstop could unpick the carefully crafted provisions for North-South cooperation set out in the 1998 Belfast Agreement.

Trimble — former member of the Ulster Unionist party who switched to the Conservative party — won the Nobel peace prize in 1998, along with Catholic Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) leader John Hume, for his efforts to bring peace to the region after decades of conflict.

David Trimble (left) and John Hume won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1998 for