BRITISH PRIME MINISTER David Cameron has said a vote for the UK to leave the EU means a return to land borders between the north and south of Ireland or passport checks in Belfast for people going to Britain.

Taking his last Prime Minister’s Questions before next Thursday’s vote, Cameron said that the UK could not leave the union while making a fuss about borders and expect their own to be untouched.

He said that a leave vote would mean either a return to a land border between north and south or “some sort of checks” as people leave Belfast for the rest of the UK.

Cameron added that there were “risks” to the North in a Brexit and urged people in the North to avoid those.

Alistair McDonnell of the SDLP said in the Commons that the issue was “a critical economic issue for Northern Ireland’s voters”.

If we were to leave and, as the Leave campaigners want, make a big issue about our borders, then you’ve got a land border between Britain outside the European Union and the Republic of Ireland inside the European Union.

“Therefore you can only either have new border controls between the Republic and Northern Ireland, or you’d have to have some sort of checks on people as they left Belfast or other parts of Northern Ireland to come to other parts of the United Kingdom.”