IRELAND will not design a border for Brexiteers as the country insisted there was no proposal that the Irish Sea should become the new frontier with the UK after withdrawal, according to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.
The Dublin administration is unconvinced by the UK’s plans to use technology to maintain the invisible land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic - which will become the boundary with the European Union after Brexit.
Reports have suggested the Republic’s preferred option is for customs and immigration checks to be located at ports and airports instead, but Varadkar responded: “What we’re not going to do is to design a border for the Brexiteers because they’re the ones who want a border.
“It’s up to them to say what it is, say how it would work and first of all convince their own people, their own voters that this is actually a good idea.
“As far as this Government is concerned there shouldn’t be an economic border. We don’t want one.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs has said avoiding a hard border after Brexit will require “flexible and imaginative solutions”.
Minister Simon Coveney told Irish national broadcaster RTE: “There is no proposal that is suggesting that there be a border in the Irish Sea.”
Theresa May’s Democratic Unionist Party allies have hit out at that suggestion, with the party’s leader in the Commons, Nigel Dodds, saying it 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: “This apparent hardening of attitudes within the Irish Government is untimely and unhelpful.”
The row capped off a week of escalating warnings about the impact of Brexit, which the SNP said showed Labour and the Tories had to get their act together.
In that time consumers were told they faced “considerable and unpredictable changes in food prices”; a Lords report warned weakening of animal welfare standards in new trade deals could put pressure on UK food producers; a second Lords report said the UK faced “unacceptable risk” if there were no arrangements to replace the European Arrest Warrant; and the Centre for Cities has found that Aberdeen will be the hardest hit city in the UK by Brexit, with Edinburgh also in the top 10 most vulnerable.
The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said Brexit uncertainty was hampering the commercial property market here, and more than half of respondents to a survey expected firms to relocate after Brexit.
MSP Joan McAlpine said: “This week has really been a Brexit bad news bonanza – the voices warning about the potentially disastrous effects of Brexit are turning into a deafening chorus. There is no majority in the House of Commons for the Tories’ extreme Brexit without Labour’s support – Labour can help stop it, but instead they are arguing themselves into supporting a harder Brexit than the Tories.
“In contrast the SNP Government has put forward serious, sensible proposals that would keep our place in the single market – protecting our close economic ties with Europe, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and protecting our living standards. The clock is ticking, and it’s time for politicians of all parties to come together to protect jobs, household incomes and investment and fight for our membership of the single market.”
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