Theresa May is facing a new setback in Brexit negotiations after the government in Dublin said that her proposal for the Irish border was unworkable.
Leo Varadkar, the Republic of Ireland’s prime minister, is pushing for the Irish Sea to become the post-Brexit border with the UK after warning Mrs May that her plan was doomed and would jeopardise the peace process.
British officials were said to be taken aback by Dublin’s change in tone, expressed at a European Union summit in Brussels last week.
The British government had proposed using technology such as surveillance cameras to allow continued free trade between the north and south of the island. Dublin called on British ministers to come up with new ideas that guaranteed absolute freedom of movement of goods and people across Ireland, irrespective of any wider Brexit deal.
The Irish government’s preferred option is for customs and immigration checks to be located away from the land border and at ports and airports instead — effectively drawing a new border in the Irish sea.
The move would antagonise the Democratic Unionist Party, which is propping up the Conservative government and is at loggerheads with Sinn Fein over a power-sharing deal in Belfast. The DUP would object to any implication that Northern Ireland was not being treated as part of the UK. Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign minister, told his European counterparts that the republic “cannot and will not” accept the return of a hard border after Brexit and specifically took aim at the idea of solving the problem using technology. A Whitehall source said: “There is a new taoiseach and a new foreign minister and they’re stamping their authority. We’re being as positive as we can but it’s true to say that their attitude has hardened.”
The issue of the 310-mile Irish border has been thrown into sharp relief by Mrs May’s commitment to leave the customs union after Brexit, as it would become a potential smuggling route. Neither government wants a situation that would be reminiscent of the checkpoints that operated during the Troubles. In February The Times reported that Irish officials were working on technical solutions including the use of surveillance cameras.
In a significant departure from that position, Mr Coveney told a meeting of EU foreign affairs ministers: “What we do not want to pretend is that we can solve the problems of the border on the island of Ireland through technical solutions like cameras and pre-registration and so on. That is not going to work.
“Any barrier or border on the island of Ireland in my view risks undermining a very hard-won peace process and all of the parties in Northern Ireland, whether they are unionist or nationalist, recognise that we want to keep the free movement of people and goods and services and livelihoods.”
Coveney became foreign minister last month when Mr Varadkar replaced Enda Kenny as prime minister. In private he is advocating a sea border with customs and passports checks at Northern Ireland’s air and sea ports.
David Davis, the Brexit secretary, told MPs last year that he “did not see [a sea border] would be the solution”.
Ian Paisley Jr, the DUP MP, said that “the only people discussing a sea border are people who should know better”.
He added: “Quite frankly, if the EU wants a hard border that’s what they’ll get. If they want to make this difficult then the only people who are going to suffer are people in the south of Ireland.” The Irish government is using this stage of the Brexit talks to apply pressure on the UK in the hope of gaining concessions before talks move on to a free trade deal.
The negotiations are scheduled to move on to trade in October although Mr Davis and Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator, reportedly want to increase the pace of talks. At present one week of negotiations takes place in Brussels each month.
Opponents of a hard Brexit leapt on Dublin’s stance as evidence that the UK should stay in the customs union after leaving the EU. Alison McGovern, a Labour MP who supports the campaign Open Britain, said: “Wishful thinking that a new system can be fully operational in under two years could lead to the nightmare scenario of lorries backed up at customs posts from Dundalk to Derry.”
A spokesman for Mr Coveney said: “The risks of a hard border are not solely economic or trade related. It is also about communities and society. The objectives of protecting the Good Friday agreement in all its parts and the gains of the peace process are shared by all sides.”
Boris Johnson has likened concerns about Brexit to those surrounding the millennium bug. “The whole thing about the customs union and the technical difficulties is all being turned by great superstition into the equivalent of the millennium bug,” the foreign secretary told the Lowy Institute in Sydney.