Christopher Meyer, former British ambassador to US and Germany, has argued the UK should not have taken on the responsibility for finding a fix. Instead, he said the onus should be on the EU as the bloc is interested in protecting the single market.

       The intervention comes as the UK threatens to trigger the emergency Article 16 legislation that would suspend parts of the controversial Northern Ireland Protocol, created to prevent a hard border.

       Mr Meyer tweeted: “In all the fury over Article 16 one thing is forgotten. The UK should never have accepted in the first place the avoidance of a hard border as our problem. It was always the EU’s to protect the Single Market.

       “We should have said: it’s your problem, you sort it. We don’t want one.”

       The UK has always maintained it does not want a land border on the island of Ireland and would protect the Good Friday Agreement.

       The Protocol ties Northern Ireland to the EU’s regulatory framework and has effectively placed a trade barrier down the Irish Sea – increasing checks on goods flowing from the rest of the UK.

       Follow Express.co.uk for live Brexit updates below: