Unionists in protest over Irish Sea border plans

DUP says post-Brexit suggestion is ‘unacceptable’

Theresa May’s Democratic Unionist Party allies has hit out at suggestions that the Republic of Ireland wants the Irish Sea to effectively become the border with the UK after Brexit.

The new Irish government under Leo Varadkar is unconvinced by the UK’s plans to use technology to maintain the soft border between Northern Ireland and the Republic – which will become the frontier with the European Union after Brexit.

Mr Varadkar is said to want customs and immigration checks moved away from the land border to ports and airports – effectively drawing a new border in the Irish Sea.

However, the DUP’s leader in the Commons, Nigel Dodds said such a move would be unacceptable to the DUP, which the Prime Minister relies on to prop up her minority administration in the House of Commons.

He said a sea border “may give the Republic of Ireland a special economic status within Northern Ireland but the heavy price would be new barriers to trade in the UK” for Northern Irish firms.

He said: “The DUP will not tolerate a border on the Irish Sea after Brexit that makes it more difficult to live, work and travel between different parts of the United Kingdom.

“I would strongly urge the Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, to rethink his current stance, stop playing to his own audience and approach all of these issues with a new spirit of cooperation.”

Ulster Unionist MEP Jim Nicholson added: “If this is their position, then it causes a major threat to the Belfast Agreement and would pull it asunder.”

Brexit Secretary David Davis has acknowledged that “flexible and imaginative” measures will be needed to resolve the Northern Ireland problem although he has previously told MPs when asked about an Irish Sea border that “I don’t see that would be the solution, to be honest”.

Speaking to the Press Association earlier this week, Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire insisted “technology does have a role to play” in the future border arrangements.

He said it was important to view “the trading agreements as well as technology as a combined package together”.

Picture: PA. Theresa May meets Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, whose government’s suggestion to use ports and airports as the border after Brexit have been rejected by Mrs May’s DUP allies.