Theresa May was facing intense pressure to spell out how she aims to avoid a hard Irish border in her much heralded Brexit speech on Friday, as the Irish prime minister angrily accused her of reneging on an earlier agreement with the EU on the issue.



The taoiseach, Leo Varadkar, said it was unacceptable for May or other UK politicians to dismiss the EU’s proposals for the Northern Ireland-Republic of Ireland border, as outlined in a 119-page draft Brexit treaty unveiled in Brussels on Wednesday.

“It’s not OK for people, whether pro-Brexit politicians in Britain or parties in Northern Ireland, to just say no now,” Varadkar said. If they did not want the EU’s solution, they must come up with another plan, not just “theoretical stuff”, he told Ireland’s Newstalk radio.

Varadkar’s deputy, Simon Coveney, said May’s stated intentions – no Irish border controls; no trade barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK; and leaving the single market and customs union – were “simply not compatible”.

“It’s hard to see that being done if the British government continues to pursue leaving the customs union and the single market; it’s hard to see how you avoid border structures in that kind of context,” he told RTE.

The pair were speaking after May reiterated that she would not accept the EU’s border proposals, which explicitly state that without any agreed alternative, Northern Ireland would stay part of the EU customs union after Brexit.



This would mean no internal Irish border, but would see Northern Ireland still bound by EU rules in areas such as agriculture, the environment and customs, and subject to the European court of justice, anathema to many Tory Brexiters.

The new draft treaty excludes an element from the joint statement in the initial Brexit agreement from September, which guaranteed no new regulatory barriers between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK – something Brussels now argues is up to the UK to resolve.

At prime minister’s questions, May said the EU’s plan would “undermine the UK common market, and threaten the constitutional integrity of the UK by creating a customs and regulatory border down the Irish sea”. “No UK prime minister could ever agree to it,” she said.



Speaking in Brussels, the EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, made it clear that Brussels would not shy away from holding the UK to the commitments it made in December to avoid any sort of hardening of the border. “I don’t bluff anybody,” Barnier told reporters. “I am taking note of what was written by the UK itself in that joint report.”

Barnier did not link the UK’s agreement on the legal text to talks moving on to trade, but he did say that for talks to succeed, “we must pick up the pace”. He said: “I think now what we need to do is negotiate on the basis of a text because time is short between today and the autumn of this year, which is when we need to conclude a final agreement.”

The apparent impasse heaps an even greater burden on the prime minister’s speech on Friday, in which she is due to outline the government’s plan for a new post-Brexit relationship with the EU, due to be finalised at a special cabinet session on Thursday morning.

As John Major used a speech on Brexit to call for a free vote in parliament on whether to hold a second EU referendum, May’s unofficial coalition partners in the DUP urged her to resist Brussels on the issue. The party’s leader, Arlene Foster, said the draft EU text was “constitutionally unacceptable and would be economically catastrophic for Northern Ireland”.

Leading Tory Brexiters also urged her to stand fast and rounded angrily on Barnier, claiming that there was a deliberate plot to bounce the UK into staying in the customs union.

Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who with 62 other MPs signed a letter from the hard-Brexit European Research Group last week demanding full regulatory autonomy from the EU after Brexit, said: “They aren’t interested in engaging with our position. They want to run the talks, to get a commitment up front that suits them.”



He warned that the anxiety about the commission’s approach was not restricted to the UK. “A lot of countries are getting anxious about the use of Northern Ireland and the Irish border,” he said, adding that if Barnier would not compromise on the issue, the unity among the remaining EU 27 countries might fracture. “A lot of individual countries want a free trade agreement with the UK,” he insisted.

In a sign of concern even within the cabinet, unnamed allies of Boris Johnson told the Daily Telegraph – to which the foreign secretary has close links – that he fears the Irish border is being used as a “proxy war” to stop Brexit. Johnson worries that “ultra-remainers” in parliament and the civil service are part of the conspiracy, the report said.

Meanwhile, in a speech in Brussels on Thursday, Tony Blair will call for the EU to be ready to offer the UK a way back to a reformed union that addresses the concerns over immigration. The former UK prime minister will call for the leaders of the 27 member states not to be fatalistic about Brexit while warning that there may be just “months, perhaps weeks to think, plan and act”, but that he expects parliament to flex its muscles and open the possibility for the British people to think again.

Separately, Johnson faced accusations of cowardice and discourtesy after he failed to appear in the Commons to answer an urgent question about reports that he had privately argued that a hard Irish border was possible after Brexit.

After leaked reports of a document sent by the foreign secretary to May in which he outlined the possibility of some border checks, Labour sought an urgent question in the Commons about this, to take place immediately after PMQs. David Lidington, the Cabinet Office minister, was detailed to reply. As Johnson left the chamber following PMQs, some Labour MPs yelled, “coward!”.

The shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, told MPs it was “an absolute disgrace and a huge discourtesy to this house that the foreign secretary is not here himself to answer the questions”. She later released a letter she had written to Johnson, asking him to explain the memo, given his “disappearing act” in the Commons.

Lidington said the government’s position had been consistent, and that it would not accept a hard border, “which would reverse the considerable progress made through the political process over recent decades”. This was a commitment agreed by the entire cabinet, Lidington said, adding: “Those commitments have not changed, nor will they.”

His words echoed May’s response at PMQs, where the prime minister said she and Johnson were “absolutely committed to ensuring that we deliver no hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland”.

Additional reporting by Lisa O’Carroll and Anne Perkins