Irish threat to veto Brexit trade talks

THE Irish premier could stall talks on the new EU trade deal with Britain as part of a row over the border with Northern Ireland.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar suggested he would veto the start of trade talks in October – unless Theresa May meets his demand to maintain a ‘ soft border’ between the North and South after Brexit.

Speaking on his first official visit to Belfast, Mr Varadkar said he was working with SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon and Labour’s Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones to keep Britain in the EU single market and customs union.

Mr Varadkar made a pointed reference to an EU summit in October when leaders of the other 27 members will decide whether ‘sufficient progress’ has been made in the Brexit talks to begin negotiations on a new trade deal.

Key factors include the size of the controversial ‘divorce bill’ demanded by the EU, the status of EU citizens living in the UK, and the Irish border question. Speaking at Queen’s University in Belfast, he said: ‘In October, and it’s not that far away, I will sit around the European Council table in Brussels with 26 other prime ministers and presidents.

‘And we will decide together whether sufficient progress has been made on the three key issues to allow Brexit negotiations to go on to the next stage. And it is going to be an historic meeting.

‘It is my fervent hope that progress will have been made, but I do not underestimate the challenges we face.’

He said he’d seen no evidence that technology could solve the problem of keeping goods and traffic flowing freely across a border with 200 cross- ing points which is used by 177,000 lorries a month, 208,000 vans and 1.85million cars.

Mrs May has said the UK will leave both the single market and the customs union, making it likely that border checks between North and South will increase.

But in a hint at a possible compromise, Mr Varadkar suggested the EU could offer to create a unique EU-UK customs union that would allow the Northern Ireland border to continue as it is.

He said a ‘hard Brexit’ would require a ‘unique solution’ for Northern Ireland.

But he added: ‘I would hope Unionist parties for example... would see how it is much easier to do that if in fact the United Kingdom stays in the customs union and stays in the single market because that takes away any need for any sort of special arrangement or bespoke solution for Northern Ireland at all.’

He said that if the UK did leave the customs union he would like to see a bilateral EU/UK customs deal.

A UK Government spokesman said ministers were committed to keeping the border ‘as seamless and frictionless as possible for trade… and we must preserve the Common Travel Area between the UK and Ireland.’