Irish PM: I will block Brexit talks unless hard Irish border is off the table

Ireland has issued a stark warning that it will block progress of the Brexit negotiations in December unless the UK gives a formal written guarantee there will be no hard border with Northern Ireland.

In sharp remarks before a breakfast meeting with Theresa May, the Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, said Brexit-backing politicians had not “thought all this through” in the years they had been pushing for the UK to leave the EU.

Outside the Gothenburg social summit in Sweden, Varadkar suggested he would block any progress to negotiations about the future relationship with the EU unless the UK was prepared to take a hard border, in any form, off the table between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

“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 told reporters. “We want that written down in practical terms in the conclusions of phase one.”

The prime minister was scathing about UK politicians who he said had backed Brexit without real thought to the consequences of leaving. “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.

“Britain having unilaterally taken the customs union and single market off the table, before we move to phase two talks on trade we want taken off the table any suggestion that there will be a physical border, a hard border, new barriers to trade on the island of Ireland.”

Varadkar said it was still possible that EU leaders would agree that sufficient progress had been made on issues such as the Irish border by December, to allow talks to move on to trade, but took a sceptical tone about May and other ministers’ approach.

“I think it’s certainly possible that we can come to conclusions in December allowing phase two talks to begin, but if we have to wait until the new year, if we have to wait for further concessions, so be it,” he said. “But I think it would be in all of our interests that we proceed to phase two if we can in December.”

Ireland’s new taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, has been much more sceptical than the UK about the potential for avoiding border posts via virtual checks on importers. Whilst agreeing with British ministers and EU negotiators that it is inconceivable for there to be a return to a hard border with the north, Dublin argues that the best way for the UK to achieve this would be by permanently remaining in a customs union with the EU and seeking single market membership like Norway through the European Economic Area. The UK has conceded that some of this will be necessary in its interim phase after Brexit, but hopes clever technological solutions can allow it have looser economic links in the long run. Varadkar is not alone in being sceptical about whether such a cake-and-eat-it customs and trade strategy is viable.

A UK government source said they had been “clear from the outset there will be no hard border” but admitted there was more work to be done on the issue before the two countries would see eye-to-eye. Sources pointed to several official documents released by the UK government already which made commitments on the Irish border.

After the pair met for breakfast, an Irish government source told RTE that May had told Varadkar they were “almost there” on the Irish border with all sides on the same page, which was rebuffed by the taoiseach, with the source describing the prime minister’s words as “wishful thinking”.

A Downing Street spokesman said there had been “constructive discussions on Brexit” between May and Varadkar at the breakfast meeting. “On Northern Ireland, the PM was clear that the Belfast agreement must be at the heart of our approach and that Northern Ireland’s unique circumstances demand specific solutions.

“The PM said it was important to protect progress made in Northern Ireland over recent years. Both leaders agreed to work together to find solutions which ensure there is no return to the borders of the past.”

May is set to meet the European council president, Donald Tusk, on the sidelines of the summit, as well as the European commission president, Jean-Claude Juncker. EU sources suggested Tusk would tell May that internal preparations had begun to move to the second phase of the Brexit talks, but that progress was not guaranteed by December, when the UK had hoped the agreement would be reached.

“Mr Tusk will inform Mrs May that such a positive scenario is not a given; it will require more work and that time is short,” a Brussels source said. “And he will ask Mrs May how the UK plans to progress on the three key issues for phase one.”

Entering the summit on Friday morning, May repeated her pledge that the UK would “honour our commitments”. It is understood she is preparing to offer an additional £20bn to settle the divorce bill in the first week of December before the talks.

“I was clear in my speech in Florence that we will honour our commitments,” she said. “But of course we want to move forward together, talking about the trade issues and trade partnership for the future.

“I have set out a vision for that economic partnership. I look forward to the European Union responding positively to that so we can move forward together and ensure that we can get the best possible arrangements for the future that will be good for people in the United Kingdom and across the remaining EU27.”

EU leaders must agree that “sufficient progress” has been made on three key areas before talks can move on to a future trade deal. The three areas are the so-called divorce bill, which is the financial settlement with the EU; the rights of EU citizens in the UK and British citizens in Europe; and the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

If sufficient progress is not agreed to have been made at the summit on 14-15 December, it may mean no progress is guaranteed until the next scheduled European council meeting in March 2018.

On Thursday, May met her Swedish counterpart Stefan Löfven and held an impromptu discussion with the Polish prime minister Beata Szydło, who she came across while dining at the same seafood restaurant in the Swedish port city.

Löfven took a similar cautious line after his meeting with May, saying it was “very difficult to say” whether trade talks would be given the go-ahead in December.

At the Gothenburg social summit, where the focus is employment rights, May will take part in a working group on fair working practices, highlighting the findings of the Taylor review into the gig economy, published in july.

May said that the UK was “rightly proud of the record rates of employment” and said the government would be officially responding later this year. “What we know is, as the world of work changes, it brings challenges as well as opportunities,” she said.