LONDON \u2014 Boris Johnsons new Brexit proposals \u201cfall short in a number of aspects,\u201d Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said today, as he indicated his government would sooner see a no-deal Brexit than sign up to a permanent deal requiring checks on trade across the Irish border.<\/p>\n
Speaking in Stockholm after a meeting with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan L\u00f6fven, Varadkar said the \u201ctwo major obstacles\u201d to a deal based on Johnsons proposals were the customs elements of the plan \u2013 which envisions checks on goods away from the border \u2014 and the plan for the Northern Ireland Assembly and executive in Belfast to be able to veto the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe proposals that have been put forward by the U.K. are certainly welcome in the sense that we now have written proposals that we can engage on,\u201d Varadkar said. \u201cBut they do fall short in a number of aspects \u2026 We need to explore in much more detail the customs proposals being put forward as its very much the view of the Irish government and people of Ireland north and south that there shouldnt be customs checkpoints or tariffs on trade north and south.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Irish prime minister said there had only ever been five ways to avoid a hard border: a united Ireland, Ireland rejoining the U.K., the U.K. remaining in the EU, the U.K. agreeing to stay in the single market and customs union, or the backstop plan contained in Theresa Mays Withdrawal Agreement.<\/p>\n
There was no majority on the island of Ireland for the first option, he said, despite some polls suggesting there might be. The second was \u201cnever going to happen,\u201d he added, but on the third he said that \u201call the polls suggest that is what the British people actually want but their political system isnt able to give that to them that choice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Varadkar said that Johnsons insistence on Thursday morning that customs checks would require no new physical infrastructure anywhere on the island was \u201cin contradiction to the papers presented by the U.K. government yesterday\u201d and that any consent mechanism for Belfast should not give \u201cany one party, of any denomination, a veto.\u201d<\/p>\n
The governing institutions in Belfast have not been in place since power-sharing between the Democratic Unionist Party and Sinn F\u00e9in collapsed in January 2017. The U.K. government has not been clear how consent could be granted in their absence.<\/p>\n
The DUP back Johnsons proposals but Sinn Fein does not.Read More \u2013 Source<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON \u2014 Boris Johnsons new Brexit proposals \u201cfall short in a number of aspects,\u201d Irish Prime Minist..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":133498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[202],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance"],"yoast_head":"\n