Former UKIP leader Nigel Farage has been accused of not understanding the issues surrounding the Irish border during an interview on Brexit.

Mr Farage was interviewed by Mark Carruthers for BBC Northern Ireland's The View on Thursday.

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When asked about the Irish border Mr Farage pointed to the southern England port of Felixstowe which deals with a large amount of trade.

Mr Carruthers put to Farage PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton's comments that he would require extra officers on the ground to deal with the situation in the event of extra infrastructure on the border due to extra checks and to protect people who may become a threat.

"Do you know something, go to Felixstowe see those massive 10,000 container ships coming in from China being put on lorries and being on the road in minutes," Mr Farage said.

"Felixstowe is not south Armagh," Mr Carruthers replied.

"To make that analogy suggests to me you don't really understand the border."

"We don't check the contains coming in from China, we trust people in business to make honest declarations that is the technological word that we live in."

Mr Carruthers asked Mr Farage if he understood the history of the Irish border.

"I've no desire to put a hard border back anymore than anybody in Northern Ireland has," Mr Farage said.

Mr Farage said that the importance of the Irish border was being overplayed for political reasons.

"I'm afraid what Michel Barnier has done is he's picked up the issue of the Irish border, he's negotiated cleverly, he's boxed the Prime Minister in and it's on that issue that we risk finishing up still stayed with single market rules and everything else," he said.

"It's now time for the PM to come back with a fresh initiative.

"We already have different income tax rates, corporate tax rates, a different VAT regime and a different currency, already big differences over that border but businesses and people live with it. If there was a tariff regime that's just one more difference. "

The UKIP MEP said the British Government should consider a no deal Brexit if they do not reach an agreeable solution.

"Look at the bridge from Canada across to America, every day vast amounts of agricultural goods go over that bridge and there's no need for inspection points or hard borders, we are living in a very different age, but I do think that the British Government should say to Brussels, 'ok, whatever you want to do with us, the big picture of an EU deal, why can an exemption not be made specifically for Irish agriculture.," Mr Farage said.

"It's not a concession, it's a grown up approach to the future. I'm really beginning to think that the UK ought to say to the whole EU we're not going to put a tariff regime in place, we're not going to have huge queues at our borders and we challenge you to match us. "

Mr Farage said that the Prime Minister had made a huge mistake by agreeing to backstop in the Brexit deal.

The backstop option will allow Northern Ireland to remain under EU regulations if a trade deal cannot be struck.

"The very fact she (Mrs May) even conceded the backstop was sheer madness because now there is a big incentive on Barnier to make sure there is no deal and we stay aligned to single market rules," he said.

"Let's be honest about this, with the use of the Irish border particularly, we have been outplayed and outfoxed in these negotiations.

"What we all want to know from the British Government is exactly what is their position. Staying aligned to single market rules is not what we voted for. Simple as. We voted to make our own laws and control our own borders and do our own trade deals.

"It's very simple what we voted for, now the Government have to deliver that."

The former UKIP leader said he had visited the Irish border and rubbished the idea that anyone in the DUP would welcome a return to a hard border.

"They want tariff free trade and as few obstacles as possible, but nobody in the DUP wants a hard border, wants soldiers back on the border, this is an invention of Monsieur Barnier's," he told Mr Carruthers.

Belfast Telegraph