Face of Nation : Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said he does not understand how customs checks between Ireland and Northern Ireland can be avoided under the proposed deal put forward by UK prime minister Boris Johnson.
Speaking in Stockholm after a bilateral meeting with the Swedish prime minister Stefan Löfven, Mr Varadkar said the Irish Government could not countenance any deal which resulted in such checks. Mr Johnson is proposing a new plan that would allow the United Kingdom to leave the European Union on October 31st.
He wants Northern Ireland to leave the EU customs union – the bloc’s tariff-free trading area – but to remain aligned with the EU’s single market rules.
Mr Johnson said on Thursday that under his plan, there would be no checks on the Border but at “other points of the supply chain” Mr Varadkar said the comments, however, are “actually in contradiction to the papers presented by the UK government yesterday”. “I think there are two major obstacles,” Mr Varadkar said in Sweden.
“The first is the proposal on customs. I don’t fully understand how we can have Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in a separate customs unions and somehow avoid there being tariffs and checks and customs posts between North and South. The Taoiseach added that “if we’re going to be in two different custom unions, I think that creates a real difficulty that’s going to be very hard to reconcile.”
“I think if we end up in a no-deal scenario, it may be the case that we have to live with no-deal for a period of time. Ireland will do what is necessary to protect the single market and ensure our place in the single market is protected, protecting our jobs and economy and prosperity.
“Having to do that for a period of time while we negotiate a deal or while we pursue other solutions is very different to an Irish Government actually signing up in an international treaty to putting in place checks between north and south and that is something that we can not countenance.”
Mr Varadkar has also raised concerns around proposals for a so-called Stormont lock which would give the Northern Ireland assembly a vote on future EU rules in the region.
“The issue of consent and democracy is important. I said before that any consent mechanism must reflect the views of the majority of people of Ireland and Northern Ireland and no one party, not my party, not Sinn Féin, not the DUP should be in a position to veto what would be the will of majority of Northern Ireland and Ireland.”
Mr Löfven said he did believe it was possible to get a deal over the line and said he believed the text presented by the UK was a negotiating start point.
“Is it realistic, I can not give you a percentage. But yes, it is possible, otherwise we would not work on it. This was a paper, a legal text, we can start the discussions now so let’s really make an effort.” Mr Varadkar said there are five ways to avoid a hard border, at least four of which would be acceptable to the Irish Government.
