Ireland demands Brexit border guarantee from UK

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON

Ireland would like to see a written guarantee that there will be no hard border between itself and Northern Ireland from the U.K. government, or it will block progress of already-stalled Brexit talks, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar said Friday.

Varadkar’s remarks added more strain on British government hopes that exit negotiations could move onto a second stage where future trade relations between the U.K. and the EU could be shaped.

Speaking outside the Gothenburg social summit in Sweden, where he met British Prime Minister Theresa May, Varadkar suggested Ireland would block any progress in talks unless the U.K. takes a hard border off the table.

“We’ve been given assurances that there will be no hard border in Ireland, that there won’t be any physical infrastructure, that we won’t go back to the borders of the past,” Varadkar said.

“We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of phase one. It’s 18 months since the referendum. It’s 10 years since people who wanted a referendum started agitating for one,” he said.

“Sometimes it doesn’t seem like they have thought all this through,” Varadkar added.

Varadkar’s remarks came on the same day disagreements between the British and Irish governments surfaced during a press conference in Dublin by British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson and Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney.

Johnson said: “Everybody recognizes the unique circumstances of the border with Northern Ireland,” and claimed no-one wanted a “hard border” between the two jurisdictions on the island.

However, Coveney said: “We all want to move on to phase two… but we are not in a place right now that allows us to do that.”

The Republic of Ireland remains an EU member but Northern Ireland -- part of the U.K. -- will leave the bloc in March 2019.

There are fears the upheaval could destabilize the whole island, which saw an international peace deal in 1998 to end decades of violence between Irish nationalists and pro-British unionists over the status of Northern Ireland.

The EU said Brexit negotiations were not likely to move on to a second phase -- where future trade relations will be discussed -- before questions about a financial settlement, citizens' rights and Northern Ireland are resolved.

The 27 member states will decide in a December summit whether there was sufficient progress in Brexit talks to move on to next stage.

British voters decided to leave the EU after a 44-year membership in a referendum held in June 2016. It is expected to leave the union in March 2019.