Northern Ireland

Leo Varadkar: British government needs to give more clarity on Brexit

Traffic crossing the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association
Traffic crossing the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association Traffic crossing the border between the Republic and Northern Ireland in the village of Bridgend, Co Donegal. Picture by Brian Lawless, Press Association

MORE clarity is needed from the British government on what type of Brexit it wants, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has warned.

The EU's chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday that Britain's decision to leave the single market and customs union would make Irish border checks "unavoidable".

Mr Varadkar told RTÉ yesterday: "The difficult part, and it was always going to be the difficult part, in Phase Two is the commitments and guarantees around the avoidance of a hard border."

"What we’re trying to do… is ensure that what was agreed in December is now stitched into the legal text of the withdrawal agreement," he said.

Mr Varadkar said he appreciated Mr Barnier’s frustration with the lack of progress since December, when talks moved to Phase Two of the negotiations.

He said Britain needs to decide what type of relationship it wants with the EU.

"Time is running out, it is 20 months since [the Brexit] referendum, and we still don't know what the British government wants Brexit to mean," he said.

"The UK is due to leave the EU in March 2019. It’s a little over a year away and I think we need clarity and urgency from London," he said.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to put "some meat on the bones" of what she wants from Brexit.

International Development Secretary Penny Mordaunt said a series of major speeches planned by the Prime Minister and Cabinet heavyweights would set out a Brexit "vision" over the next three weeks

She told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show: "What the public want is, they want the vision and they want some meat on the bones."

Ms Mordaunt insisted she believed a transition period was "a given" despite claims to the contrary by EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier.

She said: "What I would say to the public is that, actually, the other nations involved in this are very pragmatic and have not been impressed with some of the language that the (European) Commission has used."

The Prime Minister is set to make two key note addresses in the coming weeks, and arch Brexiteers Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox will also set out their agendas.

However, Chancellor Philip Hammond is not slated to take part in what Downing Street sources dubbed a drive to set out Britain's road map to Brexit.

In the first of the speeches on Wednesday, Foreign Secretary Mr Johnson will call for national unity over withdrawal.

This will be followed on Saturday by Prime Minister Theresa May detailing the "security partnership" the UK wants to maintain with the EU.

Brexit Secretary Mr Davis and International Trade Secretary Dr Fox will also set out their agendas, along with Cabinet Office Minister David Lidington, who backed Remain in the referendum.

Mrs May will then round off the process in an address setting out how she sees the overall relationship between Britain and Brussels after withdrawal.

As well as the speeches, members of the Cabinet's Brexit sub-committee will attend an "away day" summit at the Prime Minister's country residence Chequers.